Agenda item

This report provides an update on the activities of the council’s licensing service, changes in licensing legislation and other licensing related matters.

During the discussion, the following points were raised:-

·         The Licensing Specialist advised the Committee that since the agenda had been published, he had recruited additional resource for the team on a temporary basis.

·         The Chair advised the Committee that she had requested a meeting with the Head of Customer, Case Manager Lead and Licensing Specialist to discuss resource within the team.  She requested that if any of the Committee had any comments to be raised, to contact her and she would pass those on.

Councillors supported the Chair and her request to meet with the Head of Customer to discuss resource and raised concern on the team’s workload.

·         Councillors requested that taxi licences were updated as a whole, as they had seen several badges that still had the old logos on them.  They also queried whether vehicle door stickers could be included in the pack issued with the taxi badges.

The Licensing Specialist reminded the Committee that he had compiled a work plan which included all the projects that were in the pipeline and how the work load had been prioritised.  He further explained that there were two taxi regimes being operated within the District and that the work to amalgamate the two regimes was high on the list of project work to be carried out.  He advised that he wanted to carry out the work in smaller sections as that would make the work easier to manage and ensure it was completed in a timely manner.

·         Councillors sympathised with the Licensing Specialist and agreed that the work needed to be carried out on joining the two taxi zones would take time and would require consultation with the taxi operators from across both zones to ensure that concerns were addressed.

·         Councillors queried what progress had been made on the request to licence a tuk tuk operator within the District.

The Licensing Specialist advised that work had been done to see what other Councils had implemented through similar requests.  He had concerns on how safe it would be to operate within the towns and advised that proper checks would need to be made.  A new policy would also need to be written and brought back to Committee at a later date.

·         Councillors shared the concerns of the Licensing Specialist on the safety of tuk tuks and suggested that if a policy was written up for their use, then it should be for electric vehicles only.

Resolved: that the Committee noted the Licensing Update Report.