Mr. Hugh Creegan:

The NTA made the proposal for these licences as part of the taxi regulation review report and we would like to issue more of them, but they are targeted at local areas where there is not the opportunity for a commercial hackney service to be provided. The last thing we or the industry would want is that we use the lesser licence type to displace existing operators. It is important to us in dealing with local area hackneys that they be targeted at a local area and that that area is not served by a number of taxi or hackney operators. Many of the applications we have received to date have been to cover a vast area of a county, not a local area. They cover towns that have multiple operators. Clearly, in these cases we cannot issue a licence. However, we would like to issue more local area hackney licences in places that genuinely need this service.