Council to conduct unmet demand survey after court overturns refusal of 13 taxi licences

Halton Borough Council is to carry out an unmet demand survey after the Crown Court overturned the local authority’s decision to refuse 13 hackney carriage licences.

The court had remitted the matter back to the council with a “strong” recommendation to undertake the survey.

The case was brought by the owner of Frodsham & District Taxis, represented by Stephen McCaffrey of Kings View Chambers.

Halton operates a policy of restricting the number of taxi licences it issues. This policy, according to the council, was informed by an unmet demand survey conducted several years ago.

However, the taxi company argued that the council was neither able to produce any evidence of when this unmet demand survey was undertaken nor any justification that the number set by it was justified.  

In November 2018 the council’s Regulatory Committee met to determine the applications.

King’s View Chambers said: “It was argued before the committee that that council had no grounds for refusing the applications for the additional taxi licences because it has no evidence of any significant demand for taxis that are unmet.

“The committee’s attention was drawn to the fact that the only discretion they had in the matter was evidence that there was no significant demand for taxis that are unmet. In the absence of any such evidence, it was argued that the committee could not exercise its discretion to refuse the additional taxi licences.”

However, the regulatory committee decided that there was no evidence before it that would justify it deviating from the policy of restricting the number of taxi licences. 

At the Crown Court Halton argued, amongst other things, that the number of taxis in its area per head exceeded that of neighbouring authorities, the local taxi trade presented the council with a petition arguing against additional licences and that unmet demand surveys were prohibitively expensive.

On behalf of the taxi company, McCaffrey argued that assumptions made by the council were not evidence based and the only way to be confident would be to conduct a survey as was the requirement in Government guidance on the matter.

Finding for the appellant, the judge in the case stated that the borough council had not taken sufficient steps to ensure that such a cap was justified or that that was the appropriate number. 

The judge said an unmet demand survey would mean that allocations of taxi licence could be done fairly and based on evidence not assumptions.

The court awarded costs against the council.

A spokesperson for Halton said: “Halton Borough Council is in the process of arranging for an unmet demand survey to be carried out in accordance with the Court decision.”