Mayor unveils his big taxi plan
Reporter: Ethan Davies, Local Democracy Reporter
Date published: 16 April 2025
Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham
Andy Burnham has unveiled big plans to change how Greater Manchester taxis operate - but he needs new powers and time to make it reality.
The mayor revealed his new ‘backing our taxis’ campaign on Wednesday (April 16), which calls on the government to introduce a new law to tackle out-of-area working.
The practice sees thousands of drivers registering with one council where licences are seen as easier to acquire, and plying their trade in another part of the country.
More than four-in-ten private hire taxis in Greater Manchester are licensed outside the 10 boroughs, with 11pc of all minicabs nationally registered in Wolverhampton alone, something the mayor believes makes the enforcement of taxi safety standards harder.
“The taxi licensing system is demonstrably a broken system,” the mayor said at a press conference.
“In our city-region, we are on the verge of not licensing the majority of our taxis.
“We’re just about hanging on.
"But if the growth [in out-of-area] licenses continues, we will no longer licence the majority of our taxis.”
Other requests of the government include extending VAT exemptions on taxis adapted for disabled people, extending the plug-in taxi grant until March 2027, and reducing the rate of VAT on public electric vehicle charging to just five percent.
But Mr Burnham also said the campaign relies on Greater Manchester ‘raising its game’.
He hopes to do so by creating a more unified licensing system across Greater Manchester, in an effort to make it more attractive for locals to go to their own town hall and not travel to the West Midlands.
The first step in making the plans a reality is the launch of a 12-week-long ‘engagement exercise’, said Sara Todd, the chief executive of Trafford council, who is working with Mr Burnham on the plans.
“The intention is we are in a place by summer to understand what we are going to do with the Hackney trade,” she added.
“All of this will be coming together in a report coming to the Combined Authority in autumn time, with the intention we engage with trade every single stage.”
While much remains to be seen on the proposals, one immediate win has come for Hackney cab drivers.
Previously, cabbies warned hundreds of taxis could disappear from the roads at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve if no action was taken.
“They are expecting 1,350 vehicles to upgrade between now and December 31 [across Greater Manchester],” said Nayyer Ahmad, a Hackney Carriage driver, on April 1.
“It’s £95-£100,000 for a new cab.
"There’s very little available on the secondhand market.
"It physically cannot be done for 1,350 drivers.”
However, politicians have now given them an extra year to upgrade their taxis to meet emissions standards under the Greater Manchester clean air plan, with the change expected to be approved by individual councils’ licensing committees in due course.
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