Council backs LGA calls over taxi licensing

Rossendale Council has backed the Local Government Association’s call for government to tighten up laws around taxi licensing.

The LGA has released the following statement in which it once again calls for legislators to update Britain’s outdated and unfit-for-purpose licensing laws for taxis.

Councillor Jackie Oakes, Portfolio Holder for Operations which includes Public Protection, said:

As we made clear in our response to the Times piece yesterday, we have some of the most stringent licensing policies in the country which we started to introduce since 2016.

But this is not consistent across the country. There are no minimum standards for taxi operators and drivers. Essentially the taxi licensing laws need to be fit for the 21^st Century and they are not.

We support the LGA calls and would urge the government to get a grip of this issue once and for all.

As well as to continue to lobby for these changes, we will take steps locally. Our leader Alyson Barnes will ask Lancashire district council leaders to see if we can agree a set of standards for taxis that the whole of Lancashire adopts and implements based on the work we have done here.