Taxi driver in a spin over council's English grammar test

A 50-year-old grandfather has accused Bournemouth town hall officials of "bureaucracy gone ballistic" after he was told he could not drive a taxi because he did not know where to put an apostrophe.

Laurence Kirk is struggling to get past Bournemouth Borough Council's English language tests so that he can get a licence to become a private hire driver.

He told the Daily Echo newspaper in Bournemouth: "I used to be a taxi driver, and I was a good and successful one. But now the council are telling me I can't work as a taxi driver because I don't know how to use an apostrophe or where to put a semicolon."

Mr Kirk, from Westbourne in Dorset, does not think the tests have any connection with driving a taxi, and instead asked him to find grammatical errors in a text about a fictional football match between Harchester United and Barton Rovers.

"This is bureaucracy gone ballistic," he said.

All applicants in Bournemouth have to pass a BTec in Transporting Passengers by Taxi and Private Hire and the council has designed its own English test to check if they are suitable to take it.

Steve Wright, principal licensing officer for the council, said the test was a way of evaluating what further support drivers needed to gain their BTec.

He said: "We introduced the Skills for Life tests as an initial way to evaluate the level of understanding and knowledge before the candidate goes on to take the BTec qualification, a requirement for all taxi drivers in Bournemouth.

"The Skills for Life test allows us to make an initial assessment of the candidate's abilities and understanding to enable us to offer the right support in order to fulfil the further requirements in gaining their licence.

"These include a knowledge test to assess knowledge of the local area as well as the BTec qualification in Transporting Passengers by Taxi and Private Hire, a qualification required by the council in order to improve the quality and standard of our drivers."