Up to 120 taxi drivers in Bury face ‘immediate suspension’

Wednesday, 4 June 2025 09:28

By Chris Gee, Local Democracy Reporter

Up to 120 taxi drivers operating in Bury face ‘immediate suspension’ as they have not agreed to enhanced criminal record checks.

The council said ‘a large proportion’ of drivers licensed in the borough had agreed to requests for them to undertake a check to see if they are registered for the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) update service.

The town hall said that despite several emails being sent to all drivers to obtain their consent to undertake the check, 120 licensed private hire and Hackney Carriage drivers had failed to respond.

Licensing chiefs are now seeking powers ‘to immediately suspend those drivers’ licences until consent has been given’.

The DBS update service is an on-line subscription that allows individuals to keep their DBS certificate up to date.

More importantly, it enables employers and licensing authorities, such as Bury council, to check whether any relevant information has changed since the certificate was issued, without the need to submit a new DBS application each time.

The enhanced checks help the council in making decisions on whether to suspend, revoke or refuse to renew the licence of any taxi driver who has been convicted of an offence involving dishonesty, indecency or violence.

A report by Bury council’s licensing chief, Michael Bridge, requesting the new powers to suspend drivers, has been published this week.

He said: “Members may recall that the licensing service has conducted a procurement exercise in relation to the checking of applicants and existing
licence holders of Hackney Carriage and private hire criminal records. “The service has been requested to obtain the consent of every licensed driver to undertake a check to see if the licence holder is registered for the DBS update service.

“This has resulted in several emails being sent to all licensed drivers to obtain their consent to undertake this check. “We have received consent for a large proportion of the drivers, however there are still 120 outstanding as at May 21, 2025.

“Therefore, the service are requesting delegation to immediately suspend under the Road Safety Act those Hackney Carriage and private hire drivers licences until the consent has been given.” In 2023, Bury Council said there were 33 hackney carriage vehicles and 752 private hire vehicles licensed in Bury.

If those figures remain similar, it means that around 15 per cent of taxi drivers registered with Bury Council face suspension.

The report added that there were no specific financial issues arising from granting the new powers other than potential costs associated with legal appeals.

Members of the council’s licensing and safety committee will meet on Friday, June 6 to consider the request to suspend the licences of drivers who have failed to give consent for the enhanced checks.

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