Issue - meetings

The Principal Licensing Officer provided the Committee with a verbal report which informed the Committee of initiatives, priorities and activities undertaken within the Council’s licensing function about which Members asked questions and Officers/Manager provided responses.

Members were informed that in July 2023, a taxi Private Hire multiagency initiative was undertaken with the testers from Oldham Council depot, DVSA, GMP, Department of Work and Pensions and the licensing team at Wolverhampton City Council.

A random selection of private hire/hackney carriage vehicles were taken to the Council’s test station to undertake a full compliance test as well as spot checks. 

A total of 26 vehicles were tested, of which 17 vehicles were licensed by the Council.  The results of the testing were -

·         12 out of 17 Oldham vehicles passed

·         5 vehicles were suspended and

·         1 driver was found to be driving without a licence which had expired the week before

The results of the tests conducted on the 9 vehicles licensed by Wolverhampton City Council were –

·         only 1 vehicle passed the test

·         4 vehicles were suspended

·         2 vehicles were issued with immediate prohibition as they were not road worthy and

·         2 vehicles were issued with a delayed prohibition

The Officer agreed to circulate a report to Members providing further details on the suspensions of the Wolverhampton and Oldham vehicles and the Committee were informed that the issues identified have been raised and fed back to the Licensing Manager at Wolverhampton. 

The Licensing Committee approved a change to the Council’s licensing policy on 6^th June 2023.  As a result of this, there has been a total of 1149 new driver applications received of which 291 have already been dealt with whilst the rest are being considered.  Before the changes were implemented, Oldham licensed around 1300 drivers and the current number is nearly 1600 (1561).  Approximately 200 new vehicle license applications have been received since the policy change.

The committee were informed that Wolverhampton Council have around 36,000 licensed vehicles and approximately 8,000 Greater Manchester residents have licenses in Wolverhampton.

The Manager informed the Committee that due to the number of new driver licence applications a bigger venue is now being used for driver application tests so 60 people can sit the test at once, making the process quicker. 

RESOLVED: That the report be noted.