Taxi drivers must get their cabs licensed in order to operate legally
London taxi drivers have protested over licensing changes which they say will prevent 800 drivers working for a week.
Cabs are licensed by the Public Carriage Office (PCO) but private firm SGS takes over licensing from April.

A gap in the service and a licensing backlog will leave 800 cab drivers unable to work for a week, the London Cab Drivers Club (LCDC) union claimed.

Drivers demonstrated at City Hall, central London. Transport for London (TfL) called their fears "unfounded".

The PCO will license its last vehicle a week before SGS takes over responsibility for licensing on 2 April.

"That means 800 cab drivers will be out of work for a week," LCDC chair Alan Fleming said.

"It's a very serious situation. When you are a self-employed person such as a cab driver you have just got to work every day."

  Nobody up there knows what it is for a driver to be off the road

Alan Fleming, London Cab Drivers Club chairman
A large number of cab drivers submitted their licensing applications early in a bid to avoid problems during the transition period.

However not all these applications have been processed, Mr Fleming said, resulting in a backlog which has made the situation worse.

"TfL and the PCO were warned that this would happen when they first started talking about this 12 months ago," Mr Fleming said.

The LCDC wants TfL to enable the PCO and SGS to work together to clear the backlog before the private firm takes sole responsibility for licensing.

A TfL spokesman said: "The Public Carriage Office is taking extra measures to ensure all taxi drivers will have a valid licence, during the transition to licensing by contractor SGS."

The PCO has made more appointment times available in March than there are licenses that require renewal, he added, "meaning all drivers requiring an appointment should be able to gain one".

"We are confident all taxi drivers who need it will be given the opportunity of having their licences renewed before the last annual inspections are carried out by the Public Carriage Office on 23 March."

 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6429601.stm