Licensing Committee - Tuesday 12 September 2023, 6:30pm - Tunbridge Wells Borough Council Webcasting

Licensing Committee
Tuesday, 12th September 2023 at 6:30pm 

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  1. Webcast Finished

good evening and welcome to this meeting of the Licensing Committee on Tuesday, the 12th of September 2023, I am Councillor Webster, Chair of this Committee, before we get on to agenda items, please give your full attention to the following announcements from our Clark, Ms Mrs. Moran,
thank you, Chair and good evening everybody in the event of the fire alarm ringing continuously, you must immediately evacuate the building at walking pace officers will escort you via the most direct available route, and no one is to use the lift.
we will make our way to the fire assembly point, which is by the entrance to the Town Hall Yard, car park, on Munson Way. and once outside a check will be made to ensure everyone has safely left, no one is to re-enter the building until advice that it is safe to do so,
this is a public meeting and proceedings are being webcast live online, a recording will also be available for playback on the Council's website shortly afterwards.
can I remind everyone to use the microphones when speaking the red light indicates that the microphone is on and any comments that are not recorded for the webcast will not be included in the minutes of the meeting.
you should be aware that any third party is able to record or film council meetings unless exempt or confidential information is being considered, the Council will not accept liability for any third-party recordings.
it is very important that the outcomes of the meeting are clear at the end of each substantive item, the Chair will ask whether the matter is agreed in the absence of a clear majority, or if the Chair decides a full vote is desirable and votes will be taken by a show of hands, Members should raise their hands to indicate their vote when called and keep their hands up until the count has been announced, Members requesting a recorded vote must do so before the before the vote is taken. Thank you Chair,
for the benefit of the recording, we're going to take a roll call.

1 Chair's Introduction

Councillor Fitzsimons.
Councillor Francis
present.
Councillor Heywood,
so expected Members here this evening, Councillor Frances.
present Councillor Hill
present Councillor Johnson.
present.
solid stone.
present Councillor O'Hara
present Councillor Roberts.
Councillor Sherratt,
present Councillor White,
Councillor Wakeman, present Councillor Webster, Chair Vice Chair
present.
thank you and expected officers here this evening, Sharon Bamburgh
Crescent, Sharon de Georgia,
present Noel O'Callaghan, present, Soay Martin present Gary Stevenson, present Helen Ward, present, and for the benefit of the recording we have a Cabinet Member for Environmental Services Councillor Elin Neville with us this evening, thank you Chair.
Mrs. Moran, do we have any apologies for absence?
we've had apologies this evening from Councillors Alan Atkins and Warmington Chair.

2 Apologies for Absence

3 Declarations of Interest

members of the Committee should declare at this point if they have any declarations of interest to any agenda item this evening, does any member have a declaration to make?
I see no hands.

4 Notification of Visiting Members wishing to speak (in accordance with Council Procedure Rule 18):

Mrs. Moran, do we have any members of the public or visiting members registered to speak
with no speakers this evening Chair?

5 Minutes of the Previous Meeting dated 27 June 2023

members are asked to confirm that the minutes of the previous meeting are a true record of the proceedings, may I please remind Members that, on the only matter for discussion is their accuracy, do Members have any other comments?
senior hands,
thank you, the motion is to agree the minutes are we agreed?
the motion is carried.

6 Reports of Head of Housing, Health and Environment

right now we go to
6, A the revised animal licensing policy.
this report starts on page 10 of the agenda, Ms Martin, your report, please.
thank you good evening, we're here today to present to you the revised animal licensing policy
and for you to consider the outcome of the 8 week consultation following this draft policy, we received 23 responses in the public consultation and these responses along with officers' comments are presented in Appendix A of the report
at the previous committee meeting in June a member brought up concern regarding the reference to drug offences which is in point 5.2 point 3 in your in the revised and more licensing policy following discussion with members and further research, the wording has been changed slightly in the policy and it now reads offences involving drug offences excluding simple possession offences more than five years from the date of the licence application.
as stated at the brief Scrutiny, Members are asked to consider these responses and officers' comments and to determine whether the amendments made are sufficient to adopt the revised policy, or, if Evans, further amendments should be made, as stated at the previous meeting and in the policy
is not a legal requirement for the an animal licensing policy to be in place but it is required to ensure fairness and proportionality to all businesses within the Borough, I welcome any questions that you might have, thank you.
we have no speakers on this item, officers, do you have any questions for the officers at this time or shall we move into Member discussion?
casino hands. The recommendation, as set out in the report are 1 to consider the outcome of the eight-week consultation responses on the revised animal licensing policy to to determine whether to adopt the Policy as attached to this report with or without amendments and to take effect from the 18th of September 2023 all we agreed.
the motion is carried.
taxi policy review.
this report starts on page 49 of the agenda, Mr Giorgio, your report, please.
thank you Chair.
it is assumed that members have read the report and they see the proposed amendments,
although not a statutory requirement,
the Council has a hackney carriage and private hire licensing policy which has kept under review taking into account any changes in legislation or government guidance moreover, any local matters the current policy was updated in 2020 and we're here today to consider further proposed amendments the table set out
as Appendix B page 1 7 5 of your report details a summary changes, two of which could be deemed significant.
One is the proposed implementation of the mandatory card payment facility and to environmental considerations
as part of the Hackney Carriage demand survey, it was identified that there was a need for an introduction of card payment facilities in addition, the Council has also received complaints from a number of customers where hackney carriages have not been able to take card payments and these have become more frequent following the general move away from cash transactions to car payments across society since the pandemic.
it is understood that some drivers have been reluctant to introduce this due to the costs they incur for card transactions and problems, if no online coverage is available at the time of taking payment,
so my understanding that most car payment machines usually allow payment to be taken offline and it can store the payment for up to 72 hours until such time as the signal is available and the payment can be processed.
to clarify the provision of card payment facilities is in addition to existing cash payment options and is not a replacement for taking cash, but will complete the current compliment the current arrangements
car payments have become the norm for a large percentage of the population and it is considered that the requirement to have card facilities should be included within the policy subject to the outcome of this consultation.
the second main change is the environmental considerations at present, the Local government Association indicates that about 10% of the hackney carriage fleet nationally is all electric,
there is no national guidance for local authorities on standards for taxis and private hire Age and emissions, each authority has different local conditions based on local needs, the benefits of an emissions policy based on age and Euro VI compliance would ensure that older, higher polluting vehicles are phased out over the next few years while still maintaining a good standard of vehicle.

6 a) Animal Policy

6 b) Taxi Policy Review

in support of the Council's efforts to reduce air pollution in the Borough of Tunbridge Wells is proposed, the old vehicles presented for first time licensing.
which has private hires and or replace transfer, swap or change, which is both private hire and hackney carriages from the start date of this revised policy other than stretch limos and wheelchair accessible vehicles will have to meet or exceed the Euro VI emission standards as a minimum.
members are requested to consider the contents of the report and agree that the proposed amendments go out for public consultation, the responses will then come back to members to consider further, before finalising any amendments, I'm happy to take any questions Members may have thank you Chair.
thank you, we have no speakers on this item. officers, do you have any questions for officers at this time or shall we move into Member discussion?
I see no hands,
the recommendations as set out in the
report are,
jus, sorry, can we ask questions of the officers?
sorry, that was a typo in the Chair, says, that's my fault, it should be members, sorry, that was my fault.
paragraph
OK, firstly for
that, thank you,
Councillor Webster,
Frankie Sharon.
I've got a few questions, but maybe I'll just for one or even then see if others have other questions, firstly, I think the the mandatory card payment requirement is is overdue,
you know, I've heard that from a number of residents that they have had issues getting a taxi late at night because they weren't except card.
so can you perhaps just enlighten us a little bit, and you mentioned that sometimes as coverage problems, network coverage or something can you explain how the kind of network coverage affects their ability to use the community, and could that be a kind of?
an obstacle to to this
year there are some of the trade that I've spoken with have said that these areas in temperature, especially the rural areas where it dips in and out it has the signal, so when they then try and take payment it doesn't capture it, that's one of the
concerns that they have.
but there are a lot of other boroughs that actually still have them in place that have areas of low coverage, and it seems to be OK.
thank you, if I may ask us, will follow up them, perhaps I guess.
I'm not I've not been in that situation but might be a residents know that they live in somewhere with no network,
so I asked to pull over before they get back to their home or something I don't know might be an option
yeah what they could do is prep when picking up the taxi which will tend to be at the station you know if the area is rural they could say at the time. a rough estimate of what it's going to cost and pay, then they can then obviously, if there is a slight difference that gonna be great, agreed afterwards, it's not a problem for that.
yeah
thank you Chair, sorry sharing in your introduction to with this report to Members, you talked about car payments where it can store the payment for 72 hours if it goes offline, I think Councillor Lewis, there might.
that might help in answering his question if he could explain about that again place.
sorry, yeah, there are some of the providers that do ones, that the payment goes in, it stores it for this up to 72 hours and then should jump into place of afterwards, sorry ma waffle.
OK, thank you.
Councillor Johnson.
just a point about the the cards,
if they could have a little sign on or should have mentioned it, to the customer that they are, they do take cod as well as cash, but if the customer is living like in a rural area,
what I've done in the past all over the place
you know when it's go to a cash machine, so you know this hopefully there'll be a cash machine somewhere, so that can be a discussion for the taxi driver and the
occupant and hopefully, and I would just like to set an idea to put it in the window we do take hard payment but if you know,
that's it.
yet we can we can make that a condition that there is a sign that goes in the vehicle, that's not a problem.
if I'm correct, there have been some people where they have indicated that the taxi won't take them to the cash point.
that's been some of the problems, but yet the way that where we do get complaints are that we do deal with them.
Councillor Roberts,
thank you Chair. you definitely right, we can you can make payments of Lorenzo Wilkin and off, she will be building and with a cafe, and then it works every time, unfortunately.
the perhaps we could do a survey of
you know, bank providers who could provide that facilitates reduce them, allow the taxi drivers to know that whatever will pay, however, there was a council could possibly it might be preferred because they can store them offline, I don't know whether that would be a useful information for them.
yeah yeah, we can look into that.
Councillor Par.
my question is more about the difference between pricing.
I am not sure exactly the depend on the court, provided I probably will be differences, issues in court versus paying cash is there a way that?
would a driver's himself have the option of passing that bedlam to the customers, or is there a way of sort of balancing that that we've considered,
this is something that myself and the legal advice I have been discussing because.
destiny they come, pass the charge on to the customer, but we're trying to clarify that at the moment,
Sam borrowers say I can some say they can say yes.
thank you for sharing, yet the general principle is that you can't pass said Hodge.
payments on, but there are situations where, for example,
a booking fee is added on, for example, so the general principle is neither surcharge can't be added on.
but there may be
other ways that the pricing is, it is altered as a result of it, and what you might find is, as this is going out for consultation in the consultation responses you might find that
members of the trade indicate how they would approach any set charging pricing.
any other questions,
Peter,
thank you, Chair, I also interested in the other parry that you cut out, I'm sharing around Environmental.
sort of
standards, I suppose.
so the first question I had was you mentioned by the Euro VI standard, so broadly, is that as a requirement the vehicle has to be relatively news within the last six years and correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember that that's why didn't we have a policy like that in place anyway that,
the vehicles had to be within a certain age.
we do, but it is not actually written in stone,
but but basically, and the reason is, because any vehicle that goes back to 2015 would be Euro 6 compliant, so the garages have confirmed that the majority of our fleet are, so it's a two-stage approach, the
I think it's. Two years later, the standards changed slightly, although it's still Euro 6, the standards of have become more stringent. If you like, and sir majority of ours will comply, there are few the down,
we've got a couple of 20 fourteenths on the fleet, but I if I'm correct, there are wheelchair accessible vehicles and they are permitted to be kept on the Flinton until 15 years,
so we are as to say we are trying to phase them out and the idea behind that is if we we can capture the replacements as well. We will do
another environmental, Christian or similar else wants to jump in, but.
we've got a.
EV charging point Henry on the rank, but not on the rank.
so
do many taxis use it because obviously they're not while they sat there charging, they're not on the rank and they're not able to pick up trade.
that that's the thing I mean originally, that was the taxes on labour, because they say very few on the flee, it then become the public can use it. If I'm correct, Sharon gave me the figures earlier about three electric vehicles having a 3 electric vehicles, however, 69 hybrid yeah 69 hybrid vehicles, but they do, I have seen them, and private hire is sitting on their
they do use it yeah, but again we haven't got that many so.
I, I guess, where I'm guessing, what I'm getting at is perhaps we could look at how we can incentivise this a bit more,
you know, one option might be looking at
getting an electric vehicle charging point within the rank or somewhere that they know.
but something that's already, they're not choosing between charging and working.
and then the other mere the kind of quick follow up question is whether you mentioned the 69 hybrids or 60 something hybrids, so you cannot have it, so that's great anything more we can do to encourage
the trade to move across onto hybrids or is it do you think this is just a natural thing that they would start to do anyway?
but I can, if I just go back quickly or briefly to the charger on the rank that's not permitted, because it's plying for hire and they've got to keep on the move the whole time, so you can't have someone sitting there charging so it's not permitted so we put it as as near as we could, however private hires have use and the taxi trade wouldn't want the private hires right next to the rank because there's the perception and they're plying for trade so we had to be very careful there. though I think Sharon was going to come in on the next one.
just on the more general point about you know, what are we doing to?
move the coal fleet towards more, you know being more green, so I just thought it would be worth mentioning that we are part of were attending a current forum at the moment which is being run by Kent County Council, and it's all to do with you know making your fleets greener and the this of you know all of the Campus are ESA invited to that and it's not just the licensing, it's it's everybody in those authorities who've got the green sort of net-zero types sort of remit, under them as well.
So what's happened this year, just
it's just to give you a flavour of what's actually going on in the background, so the commissioned a survey of the taxi trade right across Kent
2 to exactly dip into one and get insight into what is stopping them from moving over to green vehicle.
So the last meeting of that we went through the first half of the results of that survey. The next meeting of that one is tomorrow morning and will be gone through the second half of that survey results and will then use that information to feed back into,
you know it, although some quick wins are not to be had, if not being very mindful, because the gritter picture that I see is. 1. The whole electric car thing is still a little bit in its infancy. In my mind, compared to the you know, much longer term use of other, then the combustion engine stuff, so we might yet see a bit of a a shift in direction. We don't know, and we're very mindful of the fact that what we don't want to do is put ourselves in a position where we take a very hard line stance about net-zero and listener and actually want to do even better than say, central government tablets and say all we want by 2025, all of because what we think will happen is our our trade will die off and know they'll not be able to afford the new vehicles which are substantially more expensive than the sort of all old-style vehicles in terms of petrol diesel,
and they're gonna have to have plenty of notice if nothing else, to be saving up for those vehicles and then feeling confident that if they get one of those vehicles, it's gonna stand the test of time and that we're not going to change our policy again, this that and the other, so it's this constant brief, this constant analysis that we're gonna be doing over, I would say the next five years or so but I would say, probably within the next two or three years we will have a better idea, for example, of whether the general infrastructure is gonna be better in terms of taxi of just taxi charging points for electric charging points for all vehicles, you know, as central government gonna roll out some better scheme than what's currently happening at the moment we do not know so it's a bit of a watch and see but just to give you a flavour of what's going on in the background, so I hope that's helpful,
and if I can just go back on that, the of the 25 councils that I've been in touch with regarding the electric vehicles, the
a lot or just put in a neuro 6 at the moment the hanging fire, if you like,
and what they said is that they they would relax the age limit on the electric vehicles, so where we have you come off at 10.00 for silence
they are indicated at the moment that could well change that the electric vehicles, the electric ones won't have an age restriction, so that's one of the incentives
Councillor Johnson.
yes, forgive me, I'm not
on all the electric vehicles to some very stupid questions,
obviously for taxes such as you quite rightly said that, but
it is a tricky one, isn't it, because how long does the electric last in a big sorry I don't know anything about them?
things that's just one of the question I've got.
that that is one of the main concerns also from all the other Councils.
that is how
the infrastructure is not in place, so it's how long the is it charged or will they be able to get to the airport and back?
so yeah, that is one of the issues,
and obviously the next question is how long does it take to charge the flick on and what it's
I'm charged,
I think there are fast charges that can, I think, do it in 20 minutes 15 or 20 minutes but I don't think all vehicles can use that.
but.
because obviously he knows about it. site petrol you just pull up a petrol station, don't you, so I can just imagine
it is quite what you're saying you know, you'll be really mindful of.
it all because it to me as well. it just feels like I can just almost hear those the taxi drivers say or why you know.
and we all right, I think, very right to hold back a bit and be very sort of until the infrastructure, I think you know like 10 minute charging, maybe.
that kind of thing, but that's what I wanted to say, but it's it's a bit of a minefield in these early days.
sorry, it wasn't the question was.
Gary now I think it's wise that we do. We review the policy in a few years' time,
just keep it under review in that regard because it's changing quickly so yeah,
Barry Stevenson
jet wash, aren't just so well, I was going to draw your attention to page 183 of your agendas, so that's the table of the proposed changes,
just making it very clear that, yeah, we'll keep this under very close review over the coming months and years, and I expect by having that in the consultation will see comments back from the trade in the same way as we've got comments about charging mechanisms. Hopefully they'll talk to us about the pros and cons of electric vehicles and the barriers that they see they have, but we're certainly encouraging them to do that. To me, our
net-zero commitments that we've made that, but recognising that some areas it's not there's gonna be a straightforward, but we're definitely encouraging it and then say I think the consultation will draw out those comments, and the traders say there has been a countywide consultation, so we've got some evidence, but I suspect our local drivers will feel that part of the consultation England will have some comments to consider next time.
thank you very much.
please,
thank you, Chair, just keep this ball rolling
when he spoke to the Council chairman did do any of them offered cheaper rates for hybrid vehicles, for example.
some day, but
someone's got to pay for that.
yes, I can see where your response is going
so, yeah, OK, I think I think it'd be interesting to see what the bison, the card payments and annum the
these environmental regulations see what the betrayed come back with absolutely.
Joe Parr,
yeah sorry just a
tad untold of this internet 0 what I wanted officers, whether any local partners were being considered in terms of building up that infrastructure, because does it us on it, there is an opportunity for local business actually get involved in terms of charging points and whatnot I'm just wonder if that's been a consideration.
I think.
it is, it is a sort of borough council or district council with.
we understand the partnership we've got lots of different circuits and the problems and I think we we face is that they sit on the Kent in terms of the Highways Authority so we can't just go dig up the road and put a charger in the bureaucracy behind all of that stuff about getting permission to it you know I know from when, for example, are probably departing a little bit but when we did the scheme to put in the TAC the charging points specific before the taxes,
Tunbridge Wells got there has done really quick. I was so pleased she did the House in the first year, it took me three years to get putting in Sevenoaks. It was and no it was just terrible in terms of the back and forth with us and count Ian, that contractor, who would come out and say
yet every time we would suggest a suitable location, it did come out in survey nor the suppl you know, the electricity supply is not good enough
and then go back and forth and back and forth in that. One charging point in in seminars
so.
to do a whole infrastructure, I think everybody talks about it, but not everybody understands that effectively,
the existing infrastructure that's there under the ground in terms of the electricity supply is often not adequate enough to then supply all of these electrical charges, and that is part of, I think the problem of the general malaise of, or lack of speed of getting the infrastructure up and running is that that it just isn't there to tap into and they might have to upgrade a lot of stuff too, and you can just imagine the roadworks and all kinds of stuff that would have to go on to do that, so I suspect it's seen as being very expensive the long problem to do with
and it will vary vastly from area to area, but this effectively does pretty much sit with Kent as the highways authority and think unless Gary wants to add anything if I'm saying anything, that's not quite accurate. that's my understanding.
certainly for placing charges on the highway to KCC issue, that we work very closely with him, but as a Borough Council we have got charges in some of our car parks and there'd be more of those coming, I think in terms of kind of partnerships with businesses, businesses have got, we've got charges that are available at times when their business doesn't need them, they can make them available to to all people. So there is something again we're working with some local businesses and whether the portfolio wants to come in here, but local businesses were working with them on natural opportunities and that may be something for the future that you know. Businesses are putting things in for there for their customers, strokes staff, that you know. If they've got spare capacity, they can make that available
yeah, I was working with 0, I was meeting with amplify, which is a
a network of local businesses who are working on sustainability in Tunbridge Wells, and it's at an initial stage at the moment, but they're hoping to work together to.
make the town greener and more sustainable say that could definitely be opportunities there.
Councillor Pará
to yeah, I was just going to add on to that slightly because probably naive from our firm point, but my neighbour has or has a Tesla, and he's got a charge of Lincoln if you're not using your charger, why not just spoil to a taxi now 5 p on top of it but clearly is probably a lot more complicated bogus for I'll throw it out there,
thank you, Councillors.
the recommendations, as set out in the reports, are that the Licensing Committee reviews the draft revised hackney carriage and private hire licensing policy and instructs officers to undertake a public consultation a further report would be brought back to the Committee to consider the results of this exercise and take these into consideration where appropriate prior to the formal adoption of the revised policy all we agreed.
the motion is carried.

6 c) Annual Partnership Update Report

the annual partnership update report,
this report starts on page 195 of the agenda, Ms Bambra, your report, please,
thank you, Chair.
hopefully you've all read the annual update report, so I won't be labour
and going through everything in the report, I do want to point out one thing which I've spotted which is a typo at 1.6 in that Appendix A
will only show the Tunbridge Wells performance, not the combined partnership
performance results. That's purely because last year obviously I've used the template from last year to draft this year's report. Last year I had a report that I could run that pulled all four together and ensured them offset against each other, just so you know for interest, if you like, if you wanted to see how the others done on the same
s, a key performance indicator, you could see that report doesn't exist any more because the person who
originally did it, and they have to set it up for each year, it doesn't just roll on and on.
has left their position at 7.00 weeks and I'm still waiting for the person who's covering that to set it up again, so that's why 0 the appendix A is only the Tunbridge Wells performance, so I'd not spotted that I'd hadn't changed that so apologies for that other than that I am hopefully you'll see that we've had another good year last year.
the highlights, I would say, are at the top of page 1 9 7,
where I'm picking out particular datasets so in that time periods.
for the year we had over 9,615 applications across the four partners for all different kinds of things from that total.
so 2,767, with a Tunbridge Wells.
given the percentages on what that represents and again just a flavour of how many e-mails, so we get how many calls we get one and roughly what the percentage is for Tunbridge Wells report then goes on to sort of set out a performance against our service plan objectives and generally speaking, we mostly met
some mostly because there will be the odd thing here and there that we are still having to rule on and deal with things like something for Bexley where we're doing online forms for them where we haven't been able to finalise getting the last of those done in time and that's rolled on to this year.
things like that, but I'm happy to take any questions that you that you have about either performance of last year, or indeed what's in the service plan for this current year?
we have no speakers on this item, officers, do you have any questions for officers at this time, or should we move to Member discussion
again, apologies that's my typo sets for members?
sorry, there's a little bit of copying and pasting going on earlier.
any questions.
the recommendations, as set out in the report, are to note the performance of the Licensing Partnership as contained within the report and to ask the Head of the Licensing Partnership to continue to provide an annual update on the licensing partnership activity to the Licensing Committee Committee each municipal year.
all we agreed.
the motion is carried.

7 Urgent Business

going on to urgent business, I can confirm that there's no such business.

8 Date of Next Meeting

and the date of the next meeting is on Tuesday, the 21 of November 2023, thank you,
thank you Chair.