Posted on the 24th April 2026 in PHTM News
OVER 150 VIOLENT OFFENDERS GRANTED LICENCES FROM THE UK'S "TAXI CAPITAL"
Wolverhampton has come under fire after new data revealed the city council granted taxi licences to more than 150 people convicted of violent crimes last year.
Information obtained by the Guardian shows that the West Midlands authority - often called the UK’s “taxi capital” - approved 438 licences for drivers with criminal records, including 61 drug offences, 36 drink-driving offences, and four sexual offences.
The scale of Wolverhampton’s operation is massive; between April 2023 and the end of March 2024, the city council issued more than 42,000 driver licences, compared with Birmingham and Bradford, which had issued the second and third largest number of licences – more than 7,000 each – according to government data.
Because of current laws, these drivers can work anywhere in the country using apps like Uber and Bolt, even though 96% of them do not actually live in Wolverhampton.
This "extraordinary dominance" has sparked serious safety concerns. Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham described the figures as “truly shocking,” noting they “lay bare the fundamental issue with how private hire licensing is managed in this country.”
He argued that the current "broken licensing system" leaves local leaders with "zero oversight over nearly half the PHVs on our streets."
The government's own safety guidelines suggest that anyone with a sexual offence conviction should not be licensed, and those with violent convictions should wait at least 10 years after their sentence.
Despite this, Wolverhampton council insists its digitised and streamlined process remains rigorous. The council’s chief executive, Tim Johnson, defended the policy, stating, “safeguarding is such a priority for us.”
He claimed that every application is carefully checked and that “there is nothing more important to us than the safety of passengers in cars licensed by this council.”
He further explained that a panel - which includes a trained decision maker and solicitor - only approves a licence if they “would be happy for a person they care for to travel alone in a vehicle driven by this person at any time of day or night.”
While apps such as Uber and Bolt say they provide safety tools for passengers, they pointed out that they do not receive specific details about a driver’s criminal history from the councils.
As calls for reform grow, safety groups like the Suzy Lamplugh Trust continues to push for stricter, consistent background checks across the entire country.
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