Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Cordiner-Achenbach, Galer & Stenhouse.

Councillors Robinson-Payne & Wells declared a Personal Interest in item 7 but in accordance with the Council's constitution were allowed to both speak and vote on the matter.

The minutes of the meeting held on 22 October 2018 were confirmed.

The Licensing Officer reported that a proposal had been received from Norfolk County Council to try and alleviate problems with the bus/taxi rank near the Troll Cart Public House. The problems seem to occur when the taxi rank was full and a bus needed to pull in to the bus stop, currently the bus stop was positioned in between two taxi ranks. The bus then stopped in the middle of the road causing obstruction to the flow of traffic.

The current proposals are:-

• one 26 metre long Disability Discrimination Act compliant bus bay at the northern end of the layby;
• one new 45 metre long taxi rank in the remainder of the layby which should accommodate up to 8 taxis. This was one less than was available at present,so a new 22 metre long taxi bay could be positioned on the southern side of Market Gates which should accommodate 4 taxis.

Several suggestions have been discussed over time, but this proposal seemed a reasonable solution. An informal consultation has been carried out with the Taxi Association and all Hackney Carriage plate holders and several responses have been received. These have been fed back to Norfolk County Council for their comments.

The Licensing Officer reported that the Licensing Manager would bring a report to a future Licensing Committee for their comments prior to the undertaking of the formal consultation process. If agreed, Norfolk County Council would like to include these works in with the planned resurfacing of Temple Road during November 2019.

The Licensing Officer reported that the Committee was asked to consider a new application for a Hackney Carriage & Private Hire Driver's Licence in view of a previous caution.

RESOLVED:-

That the Committee refuse to grant the application on the grounds that the Committee did not consider the applicant to be a fit and proper person to hold a licence.

RESOLVED:-

That under Section 100(A)(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public be excluded from the meeting for the following item of business on the grounds that it involved the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraph 1 of Part I of Schedule 12(A) of the said Act."