Lichfield District Council is facing a £4,000 refund bill after a dispute over rises in taxi licences.

The local authority put up the fee, which covers the cost of vehicle checks and licence plates, but failed to advertise the changes.

As a result they now face repaying 123 drivers the money they have been overcharged in the past three years.

Councillor Ian Pritchard, cabinet member for housing, health and environmental protection, said: “Every time we increase the licence fee, we have to advertise it in a local paper. As the recent fee increases were not advertised, we have written to licence holders to apologise for the error and to explain that they may be eligible for a refund.

“If eligible, the vehicle owner or operator will receive a refund from between £7 and £22 a year for the past three years for each taxi they have licensed with Lichfield District Council. Overall, we expect to refund around £4,000.”

However, the refund arrangements have not pleased all of those who are due their money back.

Drivers due a refund have been asked to provide information before receiving repayments.

But a group of 33 drivers has written to Lichfield District Council to complain about the process – and they have demanded the money be repaid without the paperwork.

In their letter they said: “We feel that the process you have put in place for us to claim back this illegally charged money is unacceptable.

“We would have hoped that when you realised your failure you would have used the information you hold about who you have illegally charged to rectify the situation quickly and efficiently.

“Instead you have put a process in place where those who have been overcharged have to provide information to you that you already hold.

“Your requests for original receipts is confusing as it is entirely unnecessary. You have records of who paid you, when and how.”

The group have called on the council to be proactive in repaying the money.

However, Cllr Pritchard said that the process was the only way the money could be correctly refunded.

“We are sorry for the inconvenience this mistake has caused and we are working to pay these refunds as quickly as we can,” he said. “To do this, we’ve created a simple form that asks for contact details, licence numbers and car registration details.

“Because we know licences are not always paid for by the licence holders – they are sometimes bought by taxi firms, operators or relatives on behalf of taxi drivers – we need to make sure we refund the people who paid us.

“This is why we are asking applicants to provide receipts. As companies and self-employed people should keep all work related receipts for a minimum of six years for tax purposes, they should be relatively easy to find.

“That said, we’ve asked anyone who has a problem finding their receipts, or need advice about filling in their refund applications, to contact us on 01543 308731 and we’ll do what we can to help.”

Founder of Lichfield Live and editor of the site.

7 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Dave the Taxi Driver
12 years ago

This is all very interesting – Thanks LichfieldLive !

Quoting LDC
“Because we know licences are not always paid for by the licence holders – they are sometimes bought by taxi firms, operators or relatives on behalf of taxi drivers – we need to make sure we refund the people who paid us.”

Don’t they have records of who paid them?
Is that illegal?

Doopster
12 years ago

How inept. Just refund the bloody money, it’s your cock up.

Council Tax Payer
12 years ago

Who is responsible for this?

The same council that is putting up council tax can’t even put an advert in the paper to avoid having to pay back £4000. I hope the person who’s responsibility it was to administer this is no longer receiving council tax payers money for their incompetence.

Andy
12 years ago

Can’t put an advert in the paper when they’re supposed to eh? It’s a good thing Lichfield District Council have never attempted anything complicated like rebuilding a dam or things could have gone horribly wrong.

King Ken
12 years ago

Typical council. There’s almost 3 million unemployed the council should be able to recruit someone capable of doing the job

Kiran
12 years ago

The council have excelled themselves! Why don’t they admit that they know a self employed person isn’t going to waste their time going through 3 years worth of paperwork when all they can claim is between £7 and £22? The only reason they are asking for this is so they can keep the money and not because they think a relative might have paid the money on behalf of the taxi driver (lol).

Lichfield Dishonest Council.

johnthemon
12 years ago

If the council knows that there is a discrepancy, and they took this money that they should not have taken, why not just pay it back, if by some petty jobs worth tactics some taxi drivers do not get their money back, what is going to happen to this money then? Or are the council accustomed to having unaccountable amounts money floating around.

Thank you Lichfield Live, keep up the good work.