Agenda and minutes

Apologies noted (see above).

The minutes of the meeting held on 24 May 2023 were confirmed and signed as an accurate record.

All Members are invited to declare at this point any interests they have in items appearing on this agenda, inclding the nature of those interests.

There were no declarations of interests.

Members of the public may ask questions or make statements at this meeting if they have given notice to St John Harris, Principal Democratic Services Officer and supplied the text (contact details below) by midday on Thursday, 29 August, three working days before the day of the meeting.  Each speaker should limit themselves to 3 minutes on any item.  Members of the public who have given notice will be invited to speak:-

·         at this point in the meeting if their questions/statements relate to matters which are not otherwise on the Agenda (subject to an overall time limit of 30 minutes);

·         when the relevant Agenda item is being considered if they wish to speak on a matter which is on the Agenda for this meeting.

If you are exercising your right to speak at this meeting, but do not wish to be recorded, please inform the Chairman who will instruct anyone who may be taking a recording to cease while you speak.

There were no public questions or statements.

Report of the Corporate Director - Environment

Considered 

The report of the Corporate Director - Environment in respect of a new Inclusive Service Plan in relation to hackney carriage and private hire licensing.

Introducing the report, the Head of Licensing explained the background to the draft Inclusive Service Plan which had arisen from the council’s responsibilities under the Equality Act 2010, the Executive’s commitment from February 2023 to develop such a Plan, and Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle Licensing Best Practice Guidance issued by the Department for Transport in November 2023.  Further, in September 2023, the council commissioned a research project into wheelchair accessibility to support the development of an Inclusive Service Plan. The research revealed a likely shortage of licensed wheelchair accessible vehicles based on anecdotal evidence and supported by comparisons with national data. 

The proposals in the report stopped short of imposing a mandatory wheelchair accessible requirement on all licensed vehicles; instead seeking to achieve the desired outcome by less burdensome means on operators.  This would be by introducing a new requirement for all hackney carriage vehicles to be either wheelchair accessible vehicles (WAVs) or zero emission vehicles (ZEVs) (thereby having regard to DEFRA’s Air Quality Strategy), whilst not extending this requirement to private hire vehicles.

Members of the committee then discussed the report and asked questions.  Key points made were as follows:

• Of 777 licensed hackney carriage vehicles, 69 were WAVs and 10 were ZEVs
• Of 863 licensed private hire vehicles, 40 were WAVs and 10 were ZEVs
• Geographical distribution of WAVs varied considerably across the county e.g. 15.8% in Selby district and 4.5% in Harrogate district
• The report relied primarily on the recent research commissioned and anecdotal evidence from liaising with disability action groups.  Complaints data was not available, but expectations among wheelchair users of obtaining a licensed WAV were very low and therefore many users would expect to address their transport needs by other means outside the licensing regime
• Members were concerned that there was no data on the number of wheelchair users in the county and that the research commissioned was based on national statistics.  For some disabled people their disability did not affect their mobility so they could use non-WAVs.
• The proposals in the report sought to increase WAVs to meet the undersupply whilst achieving a mixed fleet
• Some drivers in the Harrogate area returned their WAV licences when under the harmonisation of licensing policy it no longer became a requirement in the Harrogate area for newly licensed vehicles to be WAVs.  This illustrated the point that it was less profitable for operators to provide WAVs, so other measures needed to be identified to encourage their use
• The draft policy was the first step ahead of a consultation process with taxi operators and other stakeholders
• Members suggested that more work could be done in preparing the draft policy to consider possible incentives to encourage operators to adopt WAVs, to benchmark with comparator local authorities and identify best practice, to quantify the cost differential between WAV and non-WAVs, to balance the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 11.

Report of the Corporate Director - Environment

Considered 

The report of the Corporate Director - Environment in respect of a proposal to revise the Council’s Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Licensing Policy.

Introducing the report, the Head of Licensing noted that given the Inclusive Service Plan formed a large part of the revised Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Licensing Policy, it was not possible to progress the report at this stage.

Members agreed and suggested that the remit of the Task and Finish Group appointed at Minute 11 be expanded to consider other potential elements of the revised draft policy, for example:

·       Removal of the 10 year age limit on both hackney carriage and private hire vehicles and replacement with a requirement to meet the Euro 6 emission standards

·       Licensing of executive vehicles

·       Installation of CCTV in licensed vehicles

Resolved 

that the remit of the Task and Finish Group appointed at Minute 11 be expanded as indicated above.

Any other items which the Chair agrees should be considered as a matter of urgency because of special circumstances.

There were no urgent items of business.