Pendle News Room

The Pendle taxi company appeared at Burnley Magistrate’s Court this week to appeal against Pendle Council taking away their operator’s licence.

Councillor Clegg explained: 

“We revoked their licence because there was a persistent pattern of their cars failing our mechanical checks.

“We have to put the safety of passengers first and we take a tough stance on this.”

“I’m pleased that Burnley Magistrates Court has upheld our decision,” he stated.

UK Cars now has to pay Pendle Council over £3,500 in court costs. 

Neil Watson, Licensing Manager at Pendle Council, said: “The standard of UK Cars’ vehicles has been unacceptably poor.

“They didn’t make any improvements despite our very clear warning that they needed to.

“They took this appeal to court instead of accepting responsibility and making sure all their cars are always safe and roadworthy,” he said.

The chairman of the Magistrates’ Court who heard the case said:

“Mr Chaudhry, trading as UK Cars, has held a licence for many years and it follows that he has ultimate responsibility that his vehicles are roadworthy at all times to preserve public safety.

“There is no evidence that he fulfilled his responsibility – rather that he addressed it only following the council’s intervention.
“It can be reasonably expected that the holder of an operator’s licence should have more careful regard to safety and routinely carry out comprehensive checks.

“It is not sufficient to wait for the MOT testing of the vehicle. 

“This falls short of the requirements of a fit and proper person acting as an operator.
“The legislation is there to protect the public and the council rightly protects the public,” she stated.

Councillor Clegg added:

“Many Pendle taxi companies maintain their vehicles to a good standard and our spot checks show that things are improving with more taxis passing first time.

“Despite the improvement overall in the number of vehicles passing the failure rate is still too high and the court’s decision should act as a warning to other operators who have poor failure rates”.

“As a council we have a zero tolerance attitude to operators whose cars are unsafe. 

“Taxi firms must make sure their taxis are safe every day,” he stressed.

Following the decision at Burnley Magistrates’ Court to uphold Pendle Council’s decision to  revoke UK Cars operator’s licence, UK Cars’ solicitor has informed the Council that her client will now  begin a further appeal against the decision of the magistrates’ court to the Crown Court at Burnley.