With the dark winter nights approaching and a steady increase in the numbers of people spending their evenings in the town and city centres in the run up to the festive season, it is imperative that members of the public feel that they are as safe as they possibly can be when out on the town.

The T&A has long campaigned for stricter rules regulating the handing out of hackney carriage and private hire licences, following a spate of incidents involving convicted criminals. It is heartening to see that the authorities are taking these fears seriously and that there are proposals for new, stricter guidelines which will lessen the chances of those who have been convicted of serious offences gaining licences.

As the T&A has said before, those who have served their time should be free to start again with a clean sheet after paying their debt to society...but this has to be weighed against the safety of the general public - particularly women travelling alone - who would be unlikely to have a great deal of confidence in a taxi driver who had previous convictions.

The new regulations will make it a default position that anyone who has been convicted of a serious crime (the list includes drug offences, violence and sexual crimes) should expect that their application for a licence will be turned down.

This move by Bradford Council in response to public opinion highlighted in the pages of the T&A is to be welcomed, and all those who use taxis themselves or who entrust their family members to private hire or hackney carriage drives will expect to see a tightening up of the procedures that have previously allowed inappropriate drivers to climb behind the wheels.