Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were intimated on behalf of Councillors Audrey Forrest, Paul Donald Kennedy, Mark Irvine, Gordon Blair and Amanda Hampsey.

There were no declarations of interest intimated.

Report by Head of Legal and Regulatory Support

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 Applicant opted to proceed by way of written representation as she was unavailable to join the meeting.

The Chair outlined the procedure that would be followed and invited the Committee Manager to read out the written representation submitted by the Applicant.

APPLICANT

I have been working in the hospitality industry as a hotel receptionist and a bar maid on Islay for the last year and have been struggling daily to get taxis available to transport guests.  There just isn't enough taxi providers on Islay to deal with the huge influx of visitors to the island and this is only going to be compounded by the 3 new distilleries that are currently under construction.  In my opinion there is such an increase in demand for more taxi services on the island.  Thank you for your time at this hearing and I look forward to hearing the outcome.

DEBATE

Councillor Armour having recently been on Islay fully appreciated the need for taxis and was supportive of the application, saying it would be a huge asset to the Island.

Councillor Brown looked for clarification that the Applicant already had a taxi driver licence and was only applying for a taxi operator licence.  This was confirmed by Ms Clanahan.

As there was no further comments, Councillor Green was happy to move to approve the licence adding that the LVSA had been discussed at previous meetings and the information within the document was now several years old.

DECISION

The Committee agreed to grant a Taxi Car Licence to Ms C Heads and noted that written confirmation of this would be sent to her within 7 days.

(Reference: Report by Head of Legal and Regulatory Support, submitted)