Leicester to relax taxi license rules to encourage EV take-up

Leicester City Council has announced plans to introduce a temporary moratorium on its taxi licensing age policy until mid-2018.

According to Air Quality News, this is when the council believes more ultra-low emission vehicles (ULEV) will be available to hackney carriage operators.

At the moment, the current policy on vehicle age is that no hackney carriage will be licensed after it is 11-years-old.

The policy relaxation will see around 30 carriages which are due to reach this limit within the next eight months be relicensed until 30 June 2018.

The measure has been requested by a number of local operators and members of the local RMT the city council claims.

Cllr Adam Clarke, assistant city mayor for energy and sustainability, said: “Ultra-low emission hackney cabs are one of the key ways that we can help our local taxi operators clean up their fleets and support our ambition for healthy air in Leicester.

“By relaxing the age limit in this way, we are giving taxi operators a little bit of breathing space until the new ULEV hackney cabs are available. Otherwise, we’re giving them no alternative other than to replace with a new petrol or diesel vehicle.”