Bridgend Council’s Licensing Committee is set to discuss a proposal to consult taxi drivers and operators on changes to licensing conditions (pdf).
The proposed changes include:
- Requiring licensees/proprietors who rent, lease, hire or loan out their taxi or private hire vehicle to maintain a record of who is driving the vehicle. This will make it easier to identify individual drivers when investigating complaints or working with other agencies. The records will have to be maintained and kept for 12 months.
- Requiring taxi/private hire vehicle licence holders to inform the council within seven days if: they’ve received any kind of conviction, fixed penalty notice, warning or caution; they’re subject to a criminal investigation; they’ve been notified of the outcome of a criminal investigation.
- Requiring all taxi/private hire vehicle licence holders to inform the council within seven days if they’ve had a deterioration in health which requires DVLA notification.
- Reserving the council’s right to request that a licence holder produces medical evidence that they’re fit to drive (from a GP or consultant) within 14 days of the request.
While the Welsh Government are considering introducing national standards and licensing requirements, the report says these proposals wouldn’t affect those plans and are needed to raise standards in the interim.
