[derekgas]

When I worked in bury, the taxi rank had a base on irwell street, the cars on the rank pulled off when a private job came in, one independent only got flag or rank work, and another private hire firm owned two hackney cabs and used to send them for private bookings, but private hire cannot be flagged down, or work the rank, it has to be pre-booked, dont know if working for two firms is allowed on private hire, we had a cab recently, (private hire) and there was no meter in it, I thought they had to have meters now, but the driver said not.