Venue: By Microsoft Teams
Contact: Fiona McCallum Tel. No. 01546 604392
No. | Item |
---|---|
APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE Minutes: Apologies
for absence were received from Councillors Amanda Hampsey,
Daniel Hampsey, Paul Kennedy and Dougie Philand. |
|
DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST Minutes: There were no declarations of interest. |
|
CIVIC GOVERNMENT (SCOTLAND) ACT 1982: APPLICATION FOR GRANT OF A TAXI CAR LICENCE (M ROMILLY AND H ROMILLY, HELENSBURGH) Report by Head of Legal and Regulatory Support Minutes: The
Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting.
In line with recent legislation for Civic Government Hearings, the
parties (and any representatives) were given the options for participating in
the meeting today. The options available
were by video call, by audio call or by written submission. For this hearing the Applicants opted to
proceed by way of audio call and Morgan and Hayley Romilly
joined the meeting by telephone. Stephen
McIntyre-Stewart, Objector, also opted to proceed by way of audio call and
joined the meeting by telephone. All
of the other objectors (Mark Franks, Paul Dornan, Colin McNeill and Kimberley
Clerk) were unable to attend today and had asked Mr McIntyre-Stewart to speak
on their behalf. The
Chair then outlined the procedure that would be followed and invited the
Applicants to speak in support of their application. APPLICANT Mrs
Romilly read out the contents of an email which Mr Romilly had submitted to the Licensing Team prior to the
start of this hearing. The email
addressed their concerns about the objections that had been submitted in
respect of this application. Mr
Romilly then spoke in support of their
application. He advised that they had
been operating successfully in the town for a number of years and it had come
to the point that demand exceeded their capacity. He said they no longer had the spare capacity
and that their regular customers sometimes had to wait for around 40 minutes
for a taxi, especially on Friday and Saturday nights. He referred to issues in the past with the
current vehicle needing repairs and that the dealer was in Edinburgh. He advised that an extra plate would also act
as a safety net when the other vehicle was transporting customers to Glasgow
and further afield. He advised that
quite regularly after 2 am when the trains stopped there were no taxis
available in town. He said that their
vehicle was regularly the only taxi active around 2 am – 6 am. He said that they regularly took fares to
Edinburgh and Glasgow which left Helensburgh without
a taxi for up to an hour in the middle of the night. He said there was plenty trade during the
night. He
advised that this vehicle was a fully electric Nissan Leaf. He said that they’d had great success with
their current vehicle. Mr
Romilly referred to the LVSA survey and commented
that it was a number of years out of date.
He said that this was a busy town and he could justify the need for a
second car. He said he was confused as
to why Mr McIntyre-Stewart was objecting as he was just granted a plate
himself. Referring to the number of
plates in Helensburgh, he advised that these vehicles
were not available 24 hours as a lot of the Operators had full time jobs and
seen taxi work as a hobby. QUESTIONS FROM OBJECTOR Mr
McIntyre-Stewart referred to claims made that he had taken photographs of Mrs Romilly and her vehicle.
He asked Mr Romilly if he had a copy of the
photograph he took. Mr Romilly advised there was CCTV
footage. Mr McIntyre-Stewart asked if
that footage had been submitted today.
Mr Romilly advised that it could be submitted. Mr
McIntyre-Stewart referred to comments that he reversed into a petrol pump. He commented that Mrs Romilly
was hanging onto his vehicle at that point and this could be seen from the CCTV
footage. He asked Mr Romilly
to confirm if this was the CCTV footage that he had seen. Mr Romilly replied
that Mr McIntyre-Stewart would need to ask the Police and Tesco about that. Mr
McIntyre-Stewart questioned Mr Romilly about whether
his current vehicle was an electric vehicle or a plug in hybrid, commenting
that he advertised his vehicle as fully electric. Mr Romilly
commented that he could not see why this was being brought up at this meeting. Mr
McIntyre-Stewart asked Mr Romilly to confirm if he had
phoned Mr McNeil last night to ask him to withdraw his complaint. Mr Romilly advised
that he had tried to contact him about covering a job. Councillor
Gordon Blair raised a point of order on the relevancy of the questions. The
Governance Manager, Mrs Barton, pointed out to Mr McIntyre-Stewart that his
questions should relate to the submission from the Applicant and she encouraged
Mr McIntyre-Stewart to remain focussed on the points that have been made by Mr Romilly. The
Council’s Solicitor, Ms Macdonald, referred to both parties alluding to
previous complaints which did not form part of this hearing. She advised that complaints had been made
against Mr Romilly to the Licensing Team and that
these had been investigated and not upheld.
She advised that Mr McIntyre-Stewart was bringing up some of those
complaints again in this forum and reiterated that he should be focussing on
the application and matters relevant to this hearing and the application. The
Chair supported the points made in the point of order. He advised that he was trying to give both
parties a full opportunity to present their case and asked that they could both
keep to points that were really relevant. Mr
McIntyre-Stewart asked Mr Romilly if he was aware of
where these complaints came from. Councillor
Mark Irvine raised a point of order and said he was struggling to see the
relevancy of these complaints and allegations.
He said this appeared to be a civil matter between 2 parties and that he
did not think it was relevant to this application and should be taken offline
between the 2 parties. The
Chair advised that he was trying to give both parties the fullest opportunity
to present their case. He said he had
given the Applicant the opportunity to raise a number of points which he had
and in the interests natural justice it was only right that the Objector should
also be able to put reasonable questions to the Applicant in terms of their
submission. Councillor Irvine said he was ... view the full minutes text for item 3. |