Issues relating to the licensing of taxis and private hire vehicles

Written evidence from Mark Harvey, Peoplemovers East Anglia ltd (TPH 02)

With reference to the inquiry into private hire licensing.

I have now been a minibus operator in Norfolk for 12 years running mainly within the education sector I now feel the pcv industry in Norfolk especially has suffered dramatic changes due to the licensing of 8 seat private hire vehicles in 2002 as an operator we had 10 regular school contracts since 2008 we have lost all school contracts for small 16 seat vehicles if we did not foresee the changes coming early enough to diversify and change the vehicle sizes on our fleet to 27 29 and 48 seat vehicles we would now be out of business.

In 2008 Norfolk county council sent a package to all operators requiring us to take numerous hours to complete consisting of vehicles run mileages and our carbon footprint so The County Council could show how green it was.

At the end of the tendering process for that year local pcv operators within the Norwich area lost a massive 40 school runs as these where offered to local private hire contractors as vastly reduced rates as the 16 seat school runs where split into smaller 8 seat runs By County Council and pcv operators where give the excuse that a lot of the children on these runs could not travel together but had been for the last five years so now we 60 private hire vehicles running instead of 40 pcvs

I would not exactly call this green and also feel that safety standards are below the standards offered by pcv operators as we all know private hire vehicles only get tested yearly at annual test as pcv operators by law maintained their fleets and carry out inspections usually on a 28 interval I feel the only reasons for these changes are for cost cutting and the safety of passengers is now a serious risk.

November 2010