Agenda item

The Principal Licensing Officer, Worcestershire Regulatory Services (WRS), presented the report to Members. The purpose of the report was to consider the responses to the consultation regarding the Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Vehicle Age Limits.

Officers detailed that on 9^th March 2026, the Licencing Committee directed Officers to undertake a consultation on increasing the age limits in relation to renewal applications for licenced private hire and hackney carriage vehicles.

The consultation took place between 20^th April 2026 and 15^th June 2026 using an online survey tool, it was also advertised on the website, and a link was shared with relevant stakeholders detailed in paragraph 3.4 of the report. There was a total of 130 responses received, 83% of which were in support of the increase.

Officers confirmed that the consultation was only in relation to the age for vehicle renewal applications and was not for new vehicles joining the fleet.

Officers clarified the following after questions from Members

• That the 108 of the 130 respondents identified themselves as “licence holders”.
• That some errors were identified on page 28 of the reports pack in that the percentages added up to greater than 100%. Officers assured Members that the data was accurate and that this was an error in how the system calculated the percentages.

Members did not believe that the sample size was very compelling. Especially when considering that the number of responses in Favor was very similar to the number of licence holders who had a strong vested financial interest in wanting the additional year. Members further speculated that if more Members of the public had responded then the results may have come out differently. However, they accepted that they could only consider the data before them which was a consultation strongly in Favor of raising the age limits.

Members expressed some concern regarding the state of vehicles in the fleet and that raising the age limit could lead to a degradation of the standard of the vehicles licenced. However, it was also accepted that the state of any vehicle was down to the owner and was often unrelated to the age of the vehicle. This was often seen during the Licencing Sub-Committee meetings with some vehicles being kept in exceptional condition, regardless of age.

Members were assured that with the 6 monthly safety inspections in place; and with officers undertaking the inspections at Crossgates in conjunction with the Taxi Engineers, there were appropriate checks to ensure vehicles remained safe.

Consideration was given to the financial constraints faced by Licence holders and the strong competition from other Local Authorities and companies such as Uber. Members were sympathetic to these increases but noted that raising the age limits would not likely have a large impact and that further work was needed by the Executive and the future unitary authority to try and retain and expand the pool of Licenced drivers.

On being put to the vote it was:

RESOLVED that

the revised hackney Carriage and Private Hire Vehicle age limits as detailed on pages 49 and 50 of the Public Reports pack be adopted with effect from 1^st September 2026.