TEIGNBRIDGE taxi drivers are incensed that the district council mistakenly granted a hackney carriage and private hire driver's licence to a 20-year-old.

The council has a strict over-21 regulation, but admits it made an administrative error when granting the licence in January.

On Monday the matter goes before the council's regulatory and appeals committee which will consider whether to take no further action, or suspend the driver until he is 21 in November.

But it is being warned it could prove costly if it decides on a suspension with possible compensation and the cost of defending an appeal in the magistrates' court if unsuccessful.

Teignbridge Private Hire and Hackney Association will make its views known at the meeting and, in a statement on Wednesday, its drivers representative, David Cowling, who operates from Newton Abbot's Market Taxi Rank, said the association was flabbergasted at such a mistake.

'Despite all the documentation required for a licence, it was missed and it took four months for the facts to emerge,' he said.

The association's statement highlighted that drivers were angry that, having found one of their own regulations had been broken, the council did not suspend the licence immediately.

'They were also shocked to be told that no disciplinary action was to be taken against the licensing officer concerned.'

The council's precise answer to the question of age limit on April 9 was: 'No change to the current policy that drivers must be 21 years of age or over in the interest of public safety. It is considered that drivers under this age have less experience and have a statically higher accident rate.'

Mr Cowling said the association believed that the council seemed more concerned with the financial implications than public safety.

The association statement continued: 'To add insult to injury, the committee is to consider an application from a hotel to grant a private hire licence to a 19-year-old. Also under consideration is issuing a private hire plate to a Ferrari.

'Taxi drivers, some of whom have provided the Teignbridge area with a safe and sensible service for some 20 years, are becoming more and more exasperated by the council's actions and decisions. With private hire plates being issued to so-called novelty vehicles, some of which fall well outside the normal regulatory requirements, things are getting beyond a joke.'

The trade is also vehemently opposing a new council rule that, should a driver collect six or more penalty points on his or her licence within a year, he or she would have to pass the driving test, or have the licence revoked.

'Taxi drivers in Teignbridge are fed up with the council not listening to them. Instead it seems set on a course of creating a bureaucratic monster, creating legislation it does not have the authority, let alone the know how or resources, to police,' added the statement.