Issue - meetings

Councillor Moore did not take part in the vote for this agenda item.

The purpose of this report was to review Cambridge City Council’s Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Licensing Policy regarding where licensed vehicles are examined and tested before being issued with a licence and during the life of the licence.

In response to Members’ questions the Environmental Health Manager said the following:

i.               Advised that a garage facility was currently being built at Cowley Road. This was additional to the garage facility at Waterbeach. The Council’s other vehicles would be tested at the Cowley Road facility.

ii.             Noted comments made around the Council having a monopoly for the provision of taxi vehicle testing and advised that the Council’s main focus was public safety and requiring vehicles to be tested by the Council’s garage managed the risk to public safety.

iii.            Using the Council’s garage also meant that officers working within the garage could be given delegated authority to take enforcement action immediately should any vehicles not be up to standard.

iv.           There was a mix across local authorities, some councils required vehicles to be tested at the council’s own garage facility, some councils had a list of approved garages where taxi vehicles could be tested, and some councils allowed vehicles to be tested at any garage.

v.             South Cambs District Council (SCDC) had an approved list of taxi vehicle testing garages. SCDC also only required taxi vehicles to be tested once a year whereas the City Council required vehicles to be tested every 6 months. When the number of non-compliant vehicles was compared between the City Council and SCDC, SCDC had a higher number of non-compliant vehicles.

vi.           Noted that only two garages expressed an interest in providing taxi vehicle testing facilities and one of these garages would not be able to test Tesler vehicles so the vehicles they could test would be limited.

vii.          Agreed to provide a member briefing on this matter in a year’s time.

Resolved (by 5 votes to 0 with 2 abstentions) to:

i.               Approve that each Cambridge City licensed vehicle be examined and tested by the Cambridge City Council examination and testing facilities located within the Cambridge City Boundary. This would come into effect from 1st July 2025. The policy will be amended accordingly.