Taxis and private hire

Taxi Trade Updates

New medical requirements for a licence to drive Private Hire and Hackney Carriage vehicles

From January 2025, the current council medical documentation will be replaced by the ‘DVLA Medical Examination Report’ (also known as the D4).

When submitting an application to renew your licence, if evidence of your medical fitness is required, you must provide the D4 and the Bolton Council ‘Medical Declaration’ form completed by the GP.

Also from this date, licence holders will be able to choose who can complete their D4 and ‘Medical Declaration’. This can be your normal GP based in the UK, or any General Medical Council (GMC) registered GP who lives and works in the UK, both must be licensed to practice by the GMC.

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In this section

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Hackney carriages

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Private hire

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Fees

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License checker

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Licensing enquiry form

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Minutes of meetings with the trade

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Taxi trade updates

Service update – Private Hire and Hackney Carriage Licences

Due to the unprecedented number of incorrect and/or incomplete applications, and a significant increase in the number of direct contacts with individual applicants (both by email and telephone), our business process for managing online applications has been reviewed and amended.

To enable us to manage the high volume of applications, and to ensure that licences are issued in a timely manner, incorrect or incomplete driver applications will now be rejected and a refund issued.

Any rejected applications will need to be resubmitted with the error(s) corrected, and the full fee paid. Failure to do so, will result in the application again being rejected. The Licensing Service is unable to offer applicants a document checking service, so it is vitally important that all supporting documentation is correctly and fully completed, in date and attached to the application.

Driver renewal applications need to be submitted at least 8 weeks before the expiry of the licence (noting that drivers are permitted to submit their renewal application up to 12 weeks before expiry). If a driver renewal application is received after this period, we cannot guarantee that the licence will be issued prior to expiry.

We thank you for your support and cooperation with this matter.