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BREAKING: City Council suspends Uber license in Sheffield

Uber say the ban is due to an “administrative error”


Sheffield City Council have suspended Uber's license to operate in the city after 18 December following a failure to supply information about its management.

Uber's existing license is in the name of an employee who is leaving the company.

Uber has submitted an application to renew its license, but if it is not processed in time the taxi-hailing app may be forced to stop operations over the busy Christmas period.

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A spokesperson for Sheffield City Council said: "Uber’s licence was suspended last Friday after the current licence holder failed to respond to requests, made by our licensing team, about the management of Uber.

“It is legally allowed to operate up to 18th December, and if it chooses to appeal this suspension it can continue to operate until the appeal is heard. If it decides against an appeal the suspension will come into force.

“We received a new application, for a licence to operate taxis in Sheffield, from Uber Britannia Limited, on 18 October 2017 which we are currently processing."

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A spokesperson for Uber said that the company had informed the council on 5 October it needed to change the name on its licence.

However, the council stated that they could not swap the name on the document "as most other councils have done", and the company would have to apply for a new license.

The Uber spokesperson continued: "While we are in regular contact with the council, we did not receive the correspondence the council refers to as they send the letters to an incorrect address.

"We hope this administrative error can be quickly resolved so we can continue serving tens of thousands of riders and drivers in Sheffield.

"If the new application can't be resolved by 18 December we will of course submit an appeal so we can continue to serve people in Sheffield."