Legal advice: End cab chaos at closing time

More cabs at closing time would cut down on disorder.

by Richard Williams of thePublican.com's legal team of experts from London solicitors Joelson Wilson​

Last year after our work Christmas party, I stood in a taxi queue for two hours, waiting for a black cab to take me home. Time seemed to pass fairly quickly after several bottles of wine at a Turkish restaurant, but it was still a long time to wait in the cold.

It seems I am not alone - no doubt you, or certainly your customers, will have faced a similar situation at some point. Not only is queuing for a taxi annoying, but taxi queues are notorious places for fights to start after closing time.

It would appear that the government may finally be forced to take some notice of long- standing complaints about taxi shortages. The secretary of state has said recently that, in future, local licensing policies will need to be integrated with new transport strategies.

A new report by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has concluded that removing the current restrictions on the number of licensed taxis and private hire vehicles on Britain's roads would benefit the public.

Legislation currently exists in England (with the exception of London), Wales and Scotland allowing local authorities to impose quantity restrictions on the numbers of taxis in their particular area.

The OFT report indicates that 45 per cent of those local authorities in the UK able to impose restrictions currently do so. As a result of the restrictions, taxi shortages often lead to the widespread use of illegal cabs. It is estimated that in 2002 1.8 million people used an illegal taxi.

In areas of the country where local authorities have removed restrictions, the OFT report indicates that the supply of taxis has increased by about 50 per cent.

In Sheffield, for example, the removal of quantity restrictions led to an increase in the number of taxis from 300 in 1998 to 457 in 2003. As a result, the proportion of people waiting over five minutes in a taxi queue fell from 27 per cent to nine per cent.

The OFT calculates that if quantity controls were remo-ved across the country there would be an additional 15,000 taxis available.

It recommends that legislation allowing local authorities to restrict the number of taxi licences should be repealed, and that the number of licences should be determined by market forces.

The report also concludes that taxi vehicle specifications, originally designed for the needs of London traffic and adopted across the country, should be abandoned, as this requires taxi drivers to buy more expensive vehicles.

Similarly, while maximum fare levels should be retained the OFT recommends that companies should be given the freedom to set lower fares and therefore to compete on price.

The Department of Trade and Industry and the Department for Transport now have 120 days from the date of the report (November 11) to consider and respond to the OFT's findings and recommendations. It will be interesting to read the government's response.

What does all of this mean for licensing? Well, I've lost count of how many times I have been told by licensees about the desperate shortage of taxis in some towns and cities.

It is often in these areas that trouble occurs late at night, as customers simply cannot get home. And you don't need to be a genius to work out that large numbers of young people stranded on the streets after closing time all too often find other ways to entertain themselves. This frequently leads to a trip home in a police car rather than a cab.

Councils faced with this problem often argue that extending pub opening hours will lead to more disorder, when very often the possibility of reducing disorder is available to them by granting more taxi licences. Of course, these councils will shortly be taking complete control of licensing.

Surely it must be time for local authorities to review their procedures and to abandon the artificial restriction on taxi licences. The OFT has recommended that local authorities currently imposing restrictions on the number of taxi licences should remove the restrictions now, rather than being forced to act.

However, the future may not be so bright - there are no legal restrictions imposed on the number of taxi licences in central London (or in Northern Ireland) and I still had to wait for two hours for a taxi last year. This year maybe I should review the night bus timetable so I can have some chance of getting home after the Christmas party.