Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Standards

We as the Licensing Authority are responsible for licensing more than 780 vehicles, which undertake a large number of local and national journeys.  We also licence approximately 1000 individuals as drivers who must be ‘fit and proper’ to hold a licence as well as a number of private hire operators.

On 21July 2020, the Departments for Transport’s (DfT) published the document “Statutory Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle Standards.” These Standards set out a range of robust measures to protect private hire and hackney carriage passengers. The Standards set out proposed measures to strengthen our existing Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Policy, which already includes some of the Standards. It also sets out steps to help licensing authorities work together to ensure that public safety is the primary concern of the hackney carriage and private hire licensing regime and expects Licensing Authorities to implement the Standards.

We carried out this consultation to raise the community’s awareness of the Standards and to get views and comments residents may have on them, before proposing changes to our current Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Policy.