Agenda item

The Service Director Culture, Housing and Regulation will submit a report on proposed amendments to the existing Hackney Carriage table of fares. 

Mr D Wilson, Licensing Consultant, representing the Barnsley Hackney Carriage Association has been invited to the meeting to address Members.

The Service Director Culture, Housing and Regulation submitted a report on a request received from Mr D Wilson (Licensing Consultant) on behalf of the Hackney Carriage Association to amend the current Hackney Carriage Tariff.  A copy of the submission letter was appended to the report.

It was noted that the current table of fares had come into force on the 5^th November, 2010.  The Hackney Carriage Association appreciated that whilst their members required the fares to be set at a level that enabled them to maintain their vehicles and earn a modest living, the fares also needed to be affordable especially to those people who relied on then the most but could perhaps least afford them.

With this in mind, the Association had presented two competing proposals for the Board to consider (details of which were outlined within Appendix 1):

·         Proposal 1 – reduce the distance that may be travelled for the minimum fare – this proposal would mean that those customers who travelled the shortest distances (many of whom relied most on taxis they could least afford) would not be affected by the change as they tended to travel for less than 1100 yards (10/16^ths of a mile)

·         Proposal 2 – Increase all fares by increasing the fare for the minimum journey – this proposal would increase the fare for the minimum journey of 1 mile which would increase the fares on all journeys.  This would most adversely affect those customers who travelled the shortest journeys and most benefit those who travelled the longest

The statutory notice had been published in the Barnsley Chronicle on the 24^th March, 2017 detailing the two options and a copy of the notice was appended as Appendix 2.  At the closure of the consultation period, no objections had been made to either of the proposed tariff amendments.

Mr D Wilson (A2Z Licensing, Licensing Consultant) and Ms N Berry-Bailey (Secretary to the Hackney Carriage Association) attended the meeting to make representations on the proposals.  It was explained that at the most recent meeting, Members of the Association had expressed a preference for Proposal 1 to be implemented.  On that basis the Board was requested to approve that option.

In response to questioning, the following matters were raised:

·         The potential impact of increasing fares on passengers was noted but the fact that the preferred option would mean that the majority of passengers would see no, or little, increase was welcomed. 

·         It was noted that compared to many other areas and particularly neighbouring authorities, Barnsley’s Hackney Carriage fares would still remain one of the lowest

·         It was accepted that whilst the Hackney Carriage Tariff specified the statutory maximum that could be charged, this did not preclude the operator or hackney carriage driver from coming to special arrangements with their customers and charging lower fares

RESOLVED that the Hackney Carriage Tariff detailed within Proposal 1 of Appendix 1 of the report now submitted be approved for implementation from 00:01 on Thursday 27^th April, 2017.