Vehicle licences

Your vehicle needs to be checked regularly to make sure that it is safe to be used as a licensed private hire or hackney carriage vehicle. The compliance test checks that your vehicle meets road safety and environmental standards.

The cleanliness and appearance of the interior and exterior will also be inspected to ensure that the vehicle is safe for use by the public.

Only compliance tests from approved stations, listed below, will be accepted by the licensing department. Approved testing stations will email pass and failure certificates to the licensing department. Owners and/or drivers will be issued with a test certificate to keep.  As with MOT testing, vehicles may be tested up to a month in advance of the current test certificate expiry date.

Should a vehicle fail, it can be retested without a further test fee if the reason for failure has been remedied within three working days. If a vehicle fails and is not presented in a satisfactory condition in this time, or if the vehicle has been driven more than 200 miles since the initial test, a full test fee will be payable. 

Compliance tests are only relevant to licensed vehicles so the vehicle would need an MOT test for road use at any time the licence is not live. For example, if the licence was suspended for any reason.

Council approved testing stations