Why is my taxi from Wolverhampton?



In Derby today, there are around 1,700 private hire drivers who live locally with DE postcodes but hold Wolverhampton licenses. This is not by accident it is the result of drivers making a deliberate choice to “plate out of town.”

By licensing their vehicles with councils such as Wolverhampton, Gedling, and Ashfield, drivers are able to bypass the stricter terms and conditions set by Derby City Council, including local knowledge tests and the all-important driving assessment. While this may ease financial and regulatory pressures on individual drivers, it creates wider problems for Derby as a whole.

Firstly, these vehicles fall outside the authority of Derby’s licensing enforcement officers. Wolverhampton-plated cars can legally work with operators in Derby who also hold a Wolverhampton operator license, but Derby City Council has no power to inspect, monitor or regulate them. This undermines passenger safety, as the council cannot apply the same oversight it provides for Derby licensed vehicles.

Secondly, plating out of town diverts valuable revenue away from Derby. Licensing fees that should support local services and enforcement instead flow into other councils, leaving Derby with the cost of managing taxi activity on its streets but without the income to fund proper oversight. The Derby licensing team can monitor the 700 drivers licensed locally, but with three times that number licensed elsewhere (Wolverhampton, Ashfield, Gedling, and others), it feels like a losing battle.



In short. The process is simple. Passengers book a lift with a local to Derby operator who then subcontracts the job, to themselves at they Wolverhampton office (for example) who then dispatch cars licensed out of town to pick up local to Derby jobs. This is why, your Taxi is from Wolverhampton.

The choice to license outside the city may seem attractive to individual drivers, but collectively it reduces safety oversight, erodes public trust in the local trade, and deprives Derby of resources that could be reinvested into improving standards for both drivers and passengers.