PCO Law Maker, Law Breaker.

The buss words of the day over the past few years has been Health and Safety.
You couldn't move without someone saying "You cant do that its against health and safety".

Tour of duty?
So Ed Thompson is taken to see the touting that is occurring outside Abacus in the city, after watching the commissioned DVD by the LTDA. He is confronted by the clipboard man who asks him repeatedly if he needs a Taxi.
Ed takes out his warrant card and asks the clipboard man,
"why are you not working inside the club as stated in the terms of your PCO license"
The man replies that he has been told by the management not to work inside the club.
Question 1. So who applied for the license to supply PHV's from this premises, the club or a private PHV company?
Ed goes in the club flashes his warrant card and demands to see the manager, whom he asks, "Why is the clipboard man out on the pavement? Why is he not working from inside the club premises?"
Manager says " he cant work inside, its against Health and safety he would be a fire hazard".
Ed asks "why wasn't this sorted out when you applied for planning permission?"
Manager replies we didn't have to, your colleague the nice Ms Dowdye took away the requirement to have planning permission for PHV operators license."

Face saving?
So to save face with the ever increasing backlash of angry, rebellious Taxi drivers, Ed starts to make waves with statements about getting more licensed ranks and revoking operators licenses.

Result
We get a rank in Cornhill hundreds of yards away from the offending club, pointing in the wrong direction and three out of the six clubs seen openly touting in the LTDA video have their license to provide mini cabs suspended.
Question 2. What stooped the PCO/TfL revoking the license of the other three clubs in the video, why have they been treated leniently?
Question 3. What happened to health and Safety then Ed?

Net result
all the clubs that had their licenses revoked have apparently appealed and are back trading again as before. No one wants to use the new rank in Cornhill and the city police come out on the side of the touts by persecuting the licenses taxi drivers for forming an unauthorised rank, plus at Liverpool Street drivers are being reported for over ranking.

Its frighting to think that the man in charge of the worlds best licensed taxi trade had no idea what his assistant had done. Two meetings at Taxi house later and a stroppy TfL officer who left the meeting comes back with the news of the revoked licenses. Is that it then.

Question; what now?
Answer; nothing!
The clubs still have lines of illegally ranked mini cabs available for immediate hire outside and we cant get TfL or the local boroughs to place licensed taxi ranks outside premises in reasonably placed positions.
To top it, we have Luke Howard defending the actions of the touts by saying "what they are doing is perfectly Legal".
If you want to know what side of the fence this TfL officer sits on just download these e-mails obtained under a freedom of information order
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/77....il%20270109.pdf
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/77....09.jpg.pdf.html
If ever there was proof that we are seeing the lines blurred between PHV and the Licensed Taxi trade, this is it.

The only way forward.
We must now make every effort to unite as a trade and put all our political differences behind us. It is clear who we are fighting. No more the faceless bureaucrat, under their own system of press releases we have the names of the people who are destroying this trade.

Over the coming months, the taxi trade will see mass protests, supported by all associations, unions and action groups. Plans have already been drawn up for a mass demonstration on foot outside the London Assembly City Hall on the 24th on June, with other venues such as the PCO Penton Street and Windsor House planned shortly afterwards.

Action Group still in there fighting
Nighttime action is still going strong and is expanding rapidly, thanks to the actions of the LTDF, LTCPR, LCDC, RMT, Dial-a-Cab, Radio taxis, Com-Cab and many other ordinary unaffiliated drivers. Even the LTDA has mentioned the action in the last edition of their Taxi Magazine.

All central London Clubs now have make shift ranks outside and the work is being taken back. The customers of these venues have shown that they would rather travel in the safety of the London Taxi rather than with these thieves who have been ripping passengers off for some time now with the full approval of the PCO/TfL and the Local Councils.

It is perfectly clear the people who are in charge of our future have lost touch with the trade they administer and have become bias in favour of Private Hire, we have seen the evidence on many occasions. The lenient approach they have shown to the constant law breaking by PHV operator's and drivers is a slap in the face to the every driver who earned the right to ply for hire by doing the knowledge.
It is time for a clean sweep at the top as these officers have proved to be unfit for purpose.

Photos courtesy of acabbie and Thomasthetaxi