LICENSING regulations designed to stop taxi companies using vehicles older than ten years are being introduced in the Hambleton district of North Yorkshire.

Hambleton District Council has altered its Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Policy to restrict the age of licensed vehicles operating in the district to ten years, after its licensing committee voted in favour of the amendments yesterday (Thursday, November 11).

But Tim Wrightson, who runs Carlton Cars in Carlton-in-Cleveland near Stokesley, says the new policy could put him out of business. He operates a fleet of 11 vehicles which on average are 12 to 13 years old. He provides a private hire vehicle service to North Yorkshire County Council, undertaking school runs, transporting residents with special needs and providing transport on behalf of social services throughout Hambleton.

He says he has to tender for the contracts, so must keep his prices low. As the vast majority of his work involves transporting children and other passengers along farm tracks and remote roads which damaged his cars, investing in new cars was unviable.

Mr Wrightson said his cars undergo the equivalent of four MOTs a year, and are checked by qualified mechanics every three months.

In yesterday's licensing committee meeting, principal licensing officer Simon Fisher said the age limit was being imposed because licensed vehicles could clock-up an average of 400,000 miles over their lifetime.

He told the committee: “Ten years age restrictions will reduce the risk of failure and modern vehicles have a much lower CO2 emission.

“Aside from the safety there are also standards, visitors to Hambleton might be surprised to see a 15 year old vehicle licensed by Hambleton running around with licence plates on it.”

Councillor Caroline Patmore asked the officer: “Have you considered a mileage cut-off rather than an age cut-off? I would have thought that’s far more relevant. For example, if someone buys a second hand car at eight years old it wouldn’t necessarily have to have that much mileage at the age of ten years, whereas a car from new if it’s doing 40,000 miles a year will have a lot of mileage by ten years.”

Mr Fisher said it wasn’t practical as the licensing teams wouldn’t necessarily be able to find out cars’ mileage.

But he told the meeting each licensing application would be assessed individually on its own merits.

“It’s not legal for our policy to determine the outcome, so we have to consider every part of the application,” he said.

“If our policy is telling us we should refuse his licence it’s then down to the applicant to convince us why it should be allowed.”

Speaking after the meeting, Mr Wrightson said there were no guarantees a decision would be made in his favour and whether his business would still be viable.

He said: “I can’t go down the road of forking out £100,000 for a fleet of brand new cars. In these days of austerity it will cost North Yorkshire County Council more to fill their contracts.”