WATHAN v NEATH & PORT TALBOT County Borough Council
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | SIR EDWIN JOWITT |
| Judgment Date | 12 July 2002 |
| Neutral Citation | [2002] EWHC 1634 (Admin) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Docket Number | NO: CO/1772/02 |
| Date | 12 July 2002 |
[2002] EWHC 1634 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London WC2
Sir Edwin Jowitt
NO: CO/1772/02
MR PETER MADDOX (instructed by Kearns & Co Sols, Sun Alliance House, 166/167 St Helen's Road, Swansea SA1 4DQ) appeared on behalf of the Claimant
MR PAUL THOMAS (instructed by Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council, Director of Finance & Corporate Services, Head of Legal Services, Port Talbot SA13 IRJ) appeared on behalf of the Defendant
This is an appeal by way of case stated from the justices in the county of West Glamorgan acting in the petty sessional division of Neath Port Talbot. The appellant was a licensed hackney carriage driver. He had renewed his licence but then the District Council suspended it because it was said, that in breach of condition 27 of the Neath Port Talbot licensing conditions for hackney charge and private hire drivers, he had not notified the District Council within the seven days provided of certain convictions.
There was an appeal against that, to the Magistrates’ Court. It was said on behalf of the appellant that the conditions upon which the District Council relied were invalid because they had no power to make such conditions in relation to the drivers of hackney carriages. For the respondent in this appeal, it was urged upon the magistrates that the case was covered by section 57 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976. Subsection (1) reads in this way:
“A district council may require any applicant for a licence under the Act of 1847 or under this Part of this Act to submit to them such information as they may reasonably consider necessary to enable them to determine whether the licence should be granted and whether conditions should be attached to any such licence.”
I need not go through the remaining subsections which all relate, save for subsection (3), to the kind of information which may be required. Subsection (3) makes it a criminal offence knowingly or recklessly to make a false statement or omit any material particulars in providing information under the section.
What has been said and what has been urged upon me today by Mr Thomas, for the defendant, is that section 57(1) not only provides the power to require information to be given, it also provides the power to issue licences both for hackney carriages and for private hire vehicles and to impose conditions upon their grant. I am bound to say that is not the natural way one would read that subsection. But his difficulty is made the greater when one bears in mind that the earlier sections to which it is sufficient for me to refer without going through them in any detail.
The Act distinguishes between the operator of a vehicle, the driver of the vehicle and the vehicle itself. Section 55 of the 1976 Act empowers the District Council to issue a licence to the operator of a private hire vehicle and to impose conditions upon that licence. Section 51 makes similar provision in the case of a driver of a private hire vehicle, and section 48 contains the power to grant licences in respect of the private hire vehicle itself and to impose conditions in respect of it.
So, if Mr Thomas is right, one has in section 57 the creation of a power to grant licences and also to impose conditions upon the grant of those licences, whereas, in the preceding sections, that has already been dealt with by the sections to which I have referred. This, in my judgment, reinforces my reading of section 57: that it simply provides additional power to the District Council when it comes to decide whether to grant a licence and, where, it is empowered to impose conditions, whether to impose conditions. That is why section 57 comes in the place in this part of the Act which it does, after the sections which deal with the issue of licences and attaching conditions to them.
Mr Thomas realistically accepts that one has to give the same meaning to section 57 whether one is seeking to apply it to a hackney carriage or to a private hire car. That really should be sufficient to dispose of this argument. The magistrates were wrong when they considered that section 57 gave the powers that it does, and the submission to them that it did that was also wrong. But in deference to Mr Thomas's submissions I will deal with one or two further matters. I accept this is in some ways a curious piece of legislation. One has to go back to the Town Police Clauses Act 1847 to understand why I say that. This Act deals with the issue of a licence to a driver of a hackney carriage and the issue of a licence which is issued to the proprietor in respect of a particular hackney carriage. It follows that the distinction in relation to private hire vehicles that can be found in the 1976 Act between operator, driver and vehicle is not quite the same as that in the Act of 1847.
The power to control activities with hackney carriages under the 1847 Act is to be found in section 68. That enables byelaws to be passed by, nowadays, the District Council regulating among other matters the conduct of the proprietors and drivers of hackney carriages, the manner in which the number of each carriage corresponding with the number of its licence should be displayed, and the number of persons to be carried by such hackney carriages. I need go into no more detail in relation to that provision save for this, that it deals also with how such hackney carriages are to be furnished or provided; and then it deals with the fixing of hackney carriages and the stands for hackney carriages, and the fares and the safe custody and redelivery of property accidentally left in hackney carriages.
That power to make byelaws has been preserved by the Public Health Act 1878, section 171, as amended by the Local Government Act 1972, section 180(1)(a). A power which was vested formally in commissions now vests in the District Council, and that power has been preserved and not amended by the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976. The only addition to be found in the 1976 Act in relation to the control by way of imposing conditions on the operation of hackney carriages is to be found in section 47, which allows conditions to be imposed by the District Council when it issues a licence for the vehicle itself. It is not difficult to understand why such a section was included in the 1976 Act, despite the provision for making byelaws in section 68 of the 1847 Act. Going back to part of section 68, which I did not read in full and do so now; the byelaws can regulate
“…the number of persons to be carried by such hackney carriages, and in what manner such number is to be shown on such carriage, and what number of horses or other animals is to draw the same, and the placing of check strings to the carriages, and the holding of the same by the driver, and how such hackney carriages are to be furnished or provided.”
It is easy to see that, with the modern motor vehicle, that would not be a very useful power, and hence one can see why there is the more general provision in section 47 to allow conditions to be imposed in relation to the licence for the hackney carriage itself.
One further matter which Mr Thomas urged upon me was in relation to section 51 and 52 of the 1976 Act. Section 51 relates to the issue of a licence to...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Darlington Borough Council v Malcolm Kaye
...rather it was a condition attached to the grant of the license. The respondent relied on the authority of the case of Wathan v Neath and Port Talbot County Borough Council [2002] EWHC 1634(Admin) as authority for the proposition that a licensing authority is not permitted to attach conditio......
-
The Crown (on the Application of Ian Gordon Shanks, Paul Thomas Shanks and Jane Bell Trading as Blue Line Taxis) v The Council of the County of Northumberland
...to attach conditions to the grant of a hackney carriage driver's licence: see Wathan v Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council [2002] EWHC 1634 (Admin). 32 Mr John McGuinness QC, who appears for 'Northumberland', is also justified in saying that an application for the grant of a licence un......