Wolverhampton licences with a Welsh address are still a small fleet, and they are not spread evenly. A freedom of information reply to Wrexham.com, for late September, lists 195 private hire drivers and 131 private hire vehicles licensed by City of Wolverhampton Council and registered to addresses in Wales. The taxi bill that was meant to deal with this was left out of the legislative programme announced in July.
Where the licences are registered
The LL postcodes, which cover most of North Wales, account for 17 of those drivers and six of the vehicles. In each of Wrexham's four districts, LL11, LL12, LL13 and LL14, the council put the number of drivers at fewer than five. It suppresses any count from one to four.
None were registered in the CH4 to CH8 districts, which cover Flintshire and the Chester border, or in SY13 and SY14, which take in parts of the Maelor. None were registered in the LD postcodes, which cover Powys.
The CF45 postcode, Mountain Ash and the communities around it, has 58 of the vehicles and fewer than five of the drivers. Those 58 vehicles are more than four in ten of the 131 registered to Welsh addresses, and nearly ten times the six vehicles in the whole LL area.
Cardiff's postcodes account for more than 60 of the drivers. The Newport districts NP19 and NP20 account for 47.
These are the addresses on the licence. They do not show where the car is working.
The English numbers
On 1 April 2026, the Department for Transport says Wolverhampton licensed around 38,000 private hire vehicles and about 100 taxis. That is 135.4 licensed vehicles for every 1,000 people, more than four times the next authority, Knowsley, at 31.5. Wolverhampton licensed 13.1 per cent of all private hire vehicles in England. The department says this is where the vehicles are licensed, not necessarily where they work. London licensed 93,300 private hire vehicles. DfT statistics
A separate figure, for licences issued rather than the fleet on the road, is older. Between April 2023 and March 2024 the council issued 20,375 driver licences to people living outside the city and 813 to people living in it. The council told the BBC it cannot refuse an applicant because of where they live, if the requirements are met. BBC
What a Welsh council can do
A private hire vehicle licensed in England can do pre-booked work anywhere in Wales. It cannot ply for hire. A Welsh enforcement officer cannot suspend or revoke a licence issued by Wolverhampton. Criminal offences can still be prosecuted.
The Welsh Government's white paper of 9 March 2023 proposed national minimum standards, and a power for a council to take action against a driver or vehicle licensed by another authority. It also proposed that an operator, driver or vehicle working wholly or mainly in Wales would have to be licensed in Wales. A booking that crosses the border, such as an airport run from Chester into Flintshire, would still be allowed if most of that operator's work was in England. White paper
Why the bill is not going ahead
On 14 July, Ken Skates, the Welsh Labour leader and Member of the Senedd for Fflint Wrecsam, told the Senedd he had hoped that day's legislative programme would include the taxi and private hire bill developed from that white paper.
In an interview with Wrexham.com, before these figures arrived, he said the bill was meant to end cross-border working through a tighter registration system, so one area was not flooded with cars licensed somewhere else. He said the problem was worst in Cardiff and Newport, with some issues in Swansea and very few in Wrexham, and that it now appeared to be growing.
Marc Jones, also a Member of the Senedd for Fflint Wrecsam, said the volume of Wolverhampton licences raised questions about checks and about why people living in Wales were applying there. He urged Wrexham Council to make sure taxis working in the borough are properly licensed. A valid Wolverhampton private hire licence still allows pre-booked work in Wrexham.