By Mark McLaughlin

AN ATTEMPT by Dundee City Council to take one of the city’s largest taxi companies off the road has been temporarily thwarted by the courts.

The council claim The Dundee Taxi Cab Company Ltd—known locally as 203020 Cabs—has been operating unlicensed vehicles for over a year and lodged a formal complaint with Tayside Police.

However, 203020 obtained an interdict at Dundee Sheriff Court preventing police removing the taxi licence plates until an ongoing legal wrangle has been settled.

Members of last week’s closed-doors licensing sub-committee heard that The Dundee Taxi Cab Company was actually liquidated in June last year.

A leaked sub-committee report obtained by The Courier shows that the company that now operates 203020 is a wholly new company with the exact same name as the liquidated firm.

All new taxi companies must register for taxi licences with the council, but rather than re-register 203020 kept the plates that were registered to the old company.

The report states, “Although this new company has the same name as the old company, the law regards it as different entity and it cannot simply inherit the old company’s licences.

“Licences are not legally transferable.”

The company that now calls itself ‘The Dundee Taxi Cab Company’ was previously known as Marcam (Scotland) Ltd—but it assumed the title of the old taxi company two months after it was liquidated.

When the council became aware of this fact it tried to remove the company’s right to operate and requested a clarification on whether it intended to re-register.

However, the company is seeking a declaration from the court saying it is entitled to the original taxi licence plates.

The council is defending this action, but 203020 has effectively been granted leave to operate until the matter has been adjudicated.

In the meantime, the new Dundee Taxi Cab Company lodged an application for a fresh set of taxi licence plates—which came before the licensing sub-committee last Thursday.

The sub-committee effectively rejected the new application on the grounds that 203020’s fleet of 71 vehicles does not conform to council standards.

It is the policy of the licensing committee that new taxi licences should only be issued to those applicants wishing to place in service vehicles that conform to European regulations on safety and universal access.

The 71 applications placed before the committee were for standard saloon cars that don’t conform to the European standard.

However, the council provisionally granted 203020 new taxi licences provided it bought an entirely new fleet of European standard cars—which would require a massive capital investment from the company.

The council operates a two-tier car licensing system—known as ‘white plates’ and ‘yellow plates’.

The new 203020 have been given white plates, which have fewer restrictions on the type of car that can be used, but do not allow drivers to pick up passengers on the street.

To do this they require yellow plates which give them full taxi licences.

The issue over whether the reconstituted 203020 is entitled to the pre-liquidation yellow plates is pending at Dundee Sheriff Court.