West Berkshire Council’s Licensing Committee has been asked to decide the future of protected hackney carriage plates in Newbury.
An extraordinary meeting was scheduled for 7 September 2026 to consider consultation responses on the protected-plate rules, including how transfers of qualifying licences should work.
What protection covers
The council says 35 hackney carriage vehicle licences still benefit from saloon-car protection and a family-transfer exemption. The arrangements date from the former Newbury Town Zone, which capped taxi numbers before the limit was lifted in 2002.
Since then, newly issued hackney licences have required fully wheelchair-accessible vehicles. Certain licences issued before 1 April 2001 have been allowed to keep saloon cars while retained by the proprietor. A 2005 change also let qualifying protected plates transfer within an immediate family without triggering the WAV rule.
Consultation material proposed applying the wheelchair-accessible condition immediately where a protected plate is transferred outside that family exemption. No final decision or start date was confirmed in the coverage summarised here.