MORE than 170 bylaws – many out of date and irrelevant – are to be reviewed by Wirral Council and removed from the statute books.
The laws, dating back more than a century, concern subjects such as leading a bull down the street, selling condoms from “automatic machines”, and the registration of female domestic servants.
Many of the by-laws date from the former district councils in place before the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral was created.
The oldest of the bylaws dates from 1871 and regulates the level of fares in hackney carriages in Bebington, and another is understood to require taxi drivers to carry a bucket to remove manure – even though it is decades since a horse pulled a taxi cab through the borough.
There are dozens of laws specifically relating to hackney cabs and these will be among the first to be reviewed and updated or repealed. Other bylaws include two from the 1950s concerning “personal weighing machines”, a 1912 bylaw about “noisy animals and covered vans”, and a 1901 law from the Urban District of West Kirby and Hoylake regarding “horses, ponies, mules or asses standing for hire”.
Cllr Ian Lewis, cabinet member for community and customer engagement, who is among those leading calls for the review, said: “Some of these by-laws, particularly those designed to protect our environment or maintain public order will still be relevant today and need to be enforced.
“However, many will be out-of-date and no longer relevant to the modern world. I doubt if many people in Wirral are employed as female domestic servants or that there is a great demand to use a steam organ in Hoylake.
“The review will start with those by-laws affecting the licensing and use of taxis. “There are around 30 different by-laws affecting hackney carriages, some are Wirral-wide, others are specific to certain towns. We need to make sure that the laws are relevant, enforceable and are available to scrutiny by the public.
“Those that are not, we will scrap.”
The council’s plans follow moves by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition Government which has announced plans to make it easier for councillors to abolish outdated by-laws.
Local government minister Grant Shapps MP said: “Of course there are many other things to do, but having pointless laws there that no-one follows makes a mockery of the law, the law becomes an ass.
“Let’s get rid of those things and this government wants to hand the power to do those things to local communities, which surely can't be a bad thing.
“We believe that rather than everything having to revert to Whitehall, 'the minister knows best', instead, local communities should have those powers, and that's what we're going to give them today.”
