Councillors P John and C J James did not take part in the decision of this application as they did not inspect the vehicle prior to the Sub-Committee making a decision in respect of the application.

The Licensing and Registration Officer explained that the application had been made by Jamshal Iqbal to licence a Vauxhall Vectra vehicle registration number FP07 USG as a Hackney Carriage Vehicle to seat 4 persons. A previous licence expired on 25 June 2015. The applicant had submitted a letter of explanation at Appendix A to the report.

Paragraph 4.2 of the report explained that the vehicle had been previously licensed with BCBC. Mr Iqbal had previously failed to renew his licence on time in 2013, though in June of that year, a meeting of the Sub-Committee granted his vehicle a licence.

Members then proceeded to inspect the vehicle that was situate in the basement car park.

Upon reconvening the meeting, the Licensing and Registration Officer noted that when the vehicle had previously been tested on 11 December 2012, the mileage of the vehicle was 205,958, however, on 25 June 2013 the mileage had been recorded as 80,594.

Mr Iqbal advised that this had been due to the fact that there had been between these dates instrument failure in respect of the milometer. He added that when he had purchased the vehicle there had been 80,594 miles on the milometer. The current mileage after having inspected the vehicle today was 134,983.

The Licensing and Registration Officer asked Mr Iqbal why he had not applied for his licence before it had expired.

He acknowledged that this had partly been an oversight on his part and partly because the renewal reminder letter had been mistakenly delivered to his neighbours address ie 7 Broad Oak Way, when he actually lived at 7A Broad Oak Way.

Mr Iqbal added that he did have another vehicle ie HC 56 that he was leasing, but he only made a small income from this vehicle.

The Licensing and Registration Officer asked Mr Iqbal if he had been driving the vehicle subject of the report recently without a licence to do so.

He replied that he hadn’t other than to change the tyres last week, in order to ensure the vehicle is roadworthy.

In response to a further question, Mr Iqbal confirmed that he was an independent driver in terms of driving taxi’s, and though his vehicle reflected that he was employed by Radio Cabs as it had Radio Cabs stickers displayed on it, this was not the case. He was presently involved in a dispute with the Company over money that he alleged they owed him, and soon as this was resolved he would be removing the stickers.  

The applicant and Officers then retired from the meeting in order that the Sub-Committee could make a decision upon the application. Upon the meeting reconvening, it was

RESOLVED:             (1)   The Sub-Committee considered the application and inspected the vehicle of Mr J Iqbal and noted that this was the second occasion he had failed to licence his vehicle on time. The Sub-Committee had taken into consideration the Council’s Licensing Policy and unfortunately his vehicle fell outside the terms of the policy.  After inspecting the vehicle Members decided that it was not in an exceptional condition and as such they agreed that there were no exceptional circumstances which enabled them to relax the Policy.  The Sub-Committee therefore refused the application.

                                  (2)   Mr Iqbal was advised of his right of appeal to the above decision to the Bridgend Magistrates’ Court within 21 days of him receiving notification of the decision.