RESEARCHED AUTHORITY
South Staffordshire
South Staffordshire Council · Sources checked 13 September 2026
- Driver licensing
- Official route/source found
Since April 2022 Wolverhampton's licensing team administers South Staffordshire taxi licensing. Use the council-linked South Staffordshire iApply route, not a Wolverhampton licence application.
- Vehicle licensing
- Official route/source found
Council links separate South Staffordshire private-hire and hackney applications, including renewals. South Staffordshire wheelchair-accessible vehicle register is maintained through Wolverhampton.
- Operator licensing
- Official evidence found; detail still to confirm
South Staffordshire confirms its taxi licensing is administered by Wolverhampton. Indexed text of the shared March 2026 operator guide says a licence cannot transfer between a sole trader and limited company or to another owner: a new application is needed, though an existing company's directors/name can be updated. Its sole-trader checklist requires the owner to supply Basic DBS, attend with right-to-work and driving-licence evidence, and complete the named training programme; all partners provide Basic DBS. The council's 2026 Department for Transport return independently reports that bookers and dispatchers require DBS checks, a policy on employing people with convictions is required, and all 12 booking-record fields surveyed by DfT must be retained. The guide details remain provisional because its indexed PDF now returns 404; confirm the current application pack before relying on them.
- Licensing fees
- Official evidence found; detail still to confirm
South Staffordshire confirms that City of Wolverhampton Council administers its taxi licensing. Wolverhampton's current March 2026 operator guide expressly covers South Staffordshire private-hire operators and lists small-operator fees of £250 for one year and £750 for five years; normal-operator fees are £750 for one year and £3,000 for five years. It also lists a £1,000 new-operator fee and says a new operator licence is granted for one year. Driver and vehicle fees, and whether any district-specific additions apply, remain unverified, so this is a partial official fee summary rather than a complete schedule.
- Taxi tariff
- Official evidence found; detail still to confirm
PHTM's September 2026 tariff-one comparison reports a £6.80 two-mile fare for South Staffordshire and places it among authorities with a 2023 increase. This is a secondary benchmark, not a full official fare card or usable per-mile rate. The council's March 2023 consultation confirms the earlier tariff had remained unchanged since 2010 and then charged £5.10 for two miles. That old £5.10 benchmark must not be presented as today's fare. The full operative flag, distance pulses, waiting, calendar bands and extras remain unverified; obtain the displayed council tariff before quoting a specific journey.
- Mandatory qualifications
- Official evidence found; detail still to confirm
The delegated licensing service's current wheelchair-accessible vehicle guidance, which includes a separate South Staffordshire vehicle register, requires drivers of wheelchair-accessible vehicles to attend additional training before the vehicle licence is granted. Applicants should arrange this with the vehicle licensing service. This is a vehicle-specific training requirement; it does not establish the complete South Staffordshire hackney-carriage or private-hire driver qualification programme.
Withheld or still needing confirmation
- Substantive administrative change verified; technical licensing and tariff extraction remains outstanding.
- Do not mislabel South Staffordshire vehicles or tariffs as Wolverhampton.
- Driver and vehicle fees were not recovered from a current district-specific schedule.
- The relationship between the listed new-operator fee and the one-year operator fee should be confirmed before calculating an application total.
- Preserve previous fields. Partial indexed official guide evidence only; direct document retrieval failed. Guide fees not applied to South Staffordshire without confirming which authority's fee scale applies. Full operative requirements remain a genuine source-recovery gap.
- Partial evidence only: ordinary driver assessments, safeguarding programme, knowledge/English tests and refresher cadence remain unconfirmed for South Staffordshire specifically. Wolverhampton general driver requirements are not automatically attributed to this separate licensing authority.
- Only the September 2026 secondary two-mile benchmark is current numeric evidence; no full operative council fare card recovered.
- Do not derive linear distance prices, waiting rates or holiday fares from one benchmark.