A Recent Case on Setting Council Fees

A recent High Court case has again looked at the question of the setting of council fees and matters to be taken into account.
This case was a Judicial review commenced by a Mr Cummings and others and was a review of Cardiff County Council's adopted taxi and private hire fees.

We understand the Judicial Review was granted and the fees declared unlawful partly because when setting the fees the council did not take into account any deficits or surpluses from previous years. Unfortunately there is no official transcript of the case and so available details are somewhat limited

We further understand that the element relating to Hackney Carriage fees were declared unlawful because they included in part the cost of the Council providing taxi marshals.

The Council was ordered to repay the claimant licence fees.

We are grateful to the Institute of Licensing for some the detail in this article.