If you are putting a child, an elderly parent or a set of house keys into a car with someone you have never met, the only question that really matters is who that person is and who checked them. This page answers that properly rather than with reassuring adjectives.
Private hire driving is a licensed trade and the standards are set nationally, not firm by firm. Every one of our drivers holds a private hire driver licence issued by the council for the area their branch works in.
Under the Department for Transport’s statutory taxi and private hire vehicle standards, a licensing authority must put every driver applying for or renewing a licence through an enhanced DBS check, and must additionally check both the children’s barred list and the adults’ barred list. Anyone appearing on either list should not be licensed except in genuinely exceptional and formally recorded circumstances.
This is the part most people do not know. Licensed drivers are required to stay continuously registered with the DBS Update Service so that the council can re-check for new information every six months. A clean check at the start of a career is not the standard; an ongoing one is.
The same standards require licensing authorities to make drivers undertake safeguarding training — how to recognise signs of abuse or exploitation, how to understand vulnerability, and how to report a concern. It is a condition of holding the badge rather than an optional extra.
Because licensing is local, a driver working out of our Epsom office is licensed by a different authority from one working out of Kingston or Guildford. Across our eleven branches that means six Surrey authorities — Epsom and Ewell Borough Council, Reigate and Banstead Borough Council, Mole Valley District Council, Elmbridge Borough Council, Guildford Borough Council and Waverley Borough Council — plus Transport for London, which licenses private hire drivers, vehicles and operators everywhere inside Greater London rather than the individual boroughs. Our Sutton, Carshalton, Kingston and Chessington work sits on that London side of the boundary. Every licensed driver carries a badge, and you are entitled to ask to see it.
We are a private hire operator, which means every journey must be booked in advance through one of our offices. A private hire car cannot be hailed in the street or picked up at a rank. People often read that as a restriction; for anything where you care who is driving, it is the opposite.
Because the booking goes through an office, there is a record of who is driving, which vehicle, which passenger and which route, before the car moves. That is what makes a school run with a named driver possible, and it is why a courier job carrying documents or keys can be traced end to end. The distinction between private hire and a hackney carriage is set out in our minicab versus black cab comparison.
Our drivers work out of the branch nearest you, and they drive the same roads every day: the A24 through Ewell, the A217 over Burgh Heath, the A3 into Kingston, the lanes around Bookham and Leatherhead. That matters in ways a routing app does not capture.
The clearest example on our network is Epsom to Gatwick. The A217 route is 19.2 measured miles and takes about an hour and seven minutes. The M23 route is 19.4 miles and takes about thirty-two minutes. Two tenths of a mile apart, thirty-five minutes different — and which one is right depends on the hour. A driver who runs it daily knows that; an algorithm optimising for distance does not. The airport transfers page has the measured figures for all five airports.
For a repeating booking — a daily school run, a weekly hospital appointment, a regular courier collection — the job is allocated to a named driver who keeps it. Your child, or your elderly parent, sees one face, one car and one registration rather than whoever an app assigned that morning. If that driver is ill or on holiday the office tells you who is covering and, where there is time, arranges an introduction first.
For a one-off journey we cannot promise a specific person, but you can ask and the office will do what it can. For a new standing booking, ask to meet the driver before the first morning — it takes five minutes and makes the first pickup far easier for everyone.
A good deal of our work involves passengers who need something beyond the journey itself: a child travelling alone on a school run, a passenger travelling in their own wheelchair in one of our accessible vehicles, someone going to and from a medical appointment who needs the driver to wait, or a dog in the back on the way home from the vet. Tell the office what helps and it goes on the job notes for the driver rather than being explained again every time.
If you have landed here looking for driving work rather than a car, the requirements above are the requirements: a current private hire driver licence from the relevant council, which means the enhanced DBS with both barred lists, continuous DBS Update Service registration, and the safeguarding training your licensing authority sets. If you hold that, or are working towards it, our careers page is the place to start and the Epsom office on 01372 747 747 will talk you through it.
There is an unrelated firm with a similar name in Ledbury, Herefordshire, about 150 miles from here, and searches for it occasionally land on this page. We are Clocktower Cars of Epsom, Surrey, based at the Epsom Clock Tower and operating across Surrey and south-west London. If you were looking for the Ledbury firm, this is not them.
People tend to picture one licence. Private hire actually runs on three, and all three have to line up before a journey is legal. The driver holds a private hire driver’s licence. The car holds a private hire vehicle licence of its own. And the business taking your booking holds an operator’s licence. Clocktower Cars is the licensed operator; the driver who arrives is licensed separately; the car he or she arrives in is licensed separately again. Miss any one of the three and the insurance behind the journey does not stand up.
A licensed private hire vehicle is tested more often and more thoroughly than a private car. Where an ordinary car needs one MOT a year, a licensed vehicle is inspected to the council’s own standard, and most of our licensing authorities require that at least twice a year, with the test covering items an MOT never looks at — seat condition, door operation, cleanliness, tyre depth above the legal minimum rather than at it. Age limits apply too, which is why you will not find a fifteen-year-old car on a licensed plate. The licence plate itself is fixed to the vehicle, and the details on it have to match the car it is fitted to.
Carrying a paying passenger requires hire and reward insurance. A standard private motor policy, and even most business-use policies, specifically exclude it. This is the single biggest practical difference between a licensed journey and a lift arranged informally: if something happens on the way to the airport in a licensed vehicle, the passenger is insured. That is worth knowing before you accept a cheap offer from someone who turns up without a plate.
Every licensed private hire driver is issued a badge carrying a photograph and a licence number. Councils differ on exactly how it must be displayed, but in every case you are entitled to ask to see it, and no honest driver will mind being asked. If a driver cannot produce one, do not get in. The badge number is also the fastest way to raise anything about a journey afterwards, with us or with the licensing authority.
Most complaints about taxi journeys anywhere in the country come down to not knowing what was supposed to happen. So here is what happens on ours.
The driver arrives for the time you booked, not a window around it, and waits rather than leaving if you are a couple of minutes behind the door. You will have the car details, and on an early start the driver will call rather than sound the horn outside a sleeping street. If you have booked a specific vehicle size, that is the vehicle that comes — a saloon is not substituted for an estate because it was nearer.
Inbound flights are watched, so a delayed landing moves the pickup rather than wasting it. The driver works to the landing time, then allows for immigration and baggage before expecting you in arrivals. If you clear quickly you will not be left waiting in the hall, and if the belt takes an hour nobody has given up and gone home. How meeting inside the terminal differs from a kerbside pickup, and what each costs you in waiting time, is set out on our airport transfers page.
Our drivers know which end of Epsom, Ewell West, Godalming, Guildford, Weybridge and Kingston stations the car can actually stop at, which matters far more at half past eleven on a Saturday than it does at ten on a Tuesday. For a late return, the driver will wait for the train rather than the booking time if the train is late — it is the same journey either way, and standing on a dark platform is not part of it. If you would rather not wait outside at all, tell the office when you book and the driver will call you when he is on the rank.
The price is agreed when you book, with the office, before the car moves. A driver will not renegotiate it at the door, add to it mid-journey, or ask for cash on a job already paid for or running on an account. If anyone ever does, that is a conversation for the branch and we want to hear about it. Card, cash and business accounts are all handled through the office rather than at the driver’s discretion.
Nobody runs eleven branches and thousands of journeys a year without the occasional bad one. What matters is what happens next, so the route is deliberately short. Phone the branch that took the booking — the numbers are in the table below and on our branch locator — and give the date, the time and either the driver’s badge number or the car. Every booking is logged against a driver, so we can tell exactly who was on that job without you having to prove anything.
Anything about driving standards, conduct or the condition of a vehicle is dealt with by us directly, and separately you always have the right to go to the council that issued the licence. We would rather you did both than neither. Lost property is the same call: tell the branch quickly, because a phone left on a back seat is far easier to recover on the same shift than three days later.
You can compare private hire firms on price for about thirty seconds before the only question left is who turns up. An eight-year-old going to school on her own, a relative coming out of a hospital appointment, a wheelchair user needing an accessible vehicle, a 4am run to Heathrow with a flight that cannot be missed — in all four, the driver is the service. Everything above is how we try to make that a safe bet rather than a hopeful one.
| Branch | Where it is | Phone |
|---|---|---|
| Epsom (head office) | Epsom Clock Tower, Epsom KT19 8BA | 01372 747 747 |
| Bookham | Bookham | 01372 727 727 |
| Carshalton | 33 North Street, Carshalton SM5 2HW | 0208 773 0700 |
| Chessington | Cox Lane, Chessington KT9 1SD | 0208 397 4747 |
| Ewell West | Ewell West | 0208 330 5555 |
| Godalming | Station Approach, Godalming GU7 1EU | 01483 422 222 |
| Guildford | Station Approach, London Road, Guildford GU1 4DQ | 01483 301 000 |
| Kingston | 39A Walter Street, Kingston KT2 5DS | 0203 388 9999 |
| Reigate | Castle Court, 41 London Road, Reigate RH2 9RJ | 01737 333 700 |
| Sutton | Sutton | 0208 643 2255 |
| Weybridge | Station Approach, Weybridge KT13 8UD | 01932 598 598 |
The branch locator will tell you which is nearest, find us has every address, and the FAQs cover booking, pricing and airport questions. To book, phone the branch or use the booking form.
Yes. Every driver holds an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service certificate checked against both barred lists, the children’s and the adults’. Enhanced is the highest level of check available and the only one the Department for Transport considers adequate for this work. Drivers are also enrolled on the DBS Update Service so the check is revisited at least every six months rather than being a one-off at the point of hire.
The council covering the office the driver works from. Across our eleven branches that is six Surrey authorities — Epsom and Ewell, Reigate and Banstead, Mole Valley, Elmbridge, Guildford and Waverley — plus Transport for London for everything inside the Greater London boundary, which covers our Sutton, Carshalton, Kingston and Chessington work. Clocktower Cars itself holds the operator’s licence that lets us take your booking.
Yes, and you should feel free to. Every licensed minicab or taxi driver carries a photographic badge with a licence number on it. No legitimate driver will object to being asked. If someone cannot produce one, do not travel with them.
Yes. Private hire work requires hire and reward insurance, which an ordinary private motor policy specifically excludes. The driver’s licence, the vehicle’s licence and our operator’s licence all have to be valid for that cover to stand, which is the real reason the paperwork matters.
On regular bookings, usually yes. It matters most on school runs, on repeat medical appointments and for passengers who find a new face difficult, and those are the jobs we try hardest to keep consistent. Ask the branch when you set the booking up. We will not promise it for a one-off journey, because the honest answer depends on who is on shift.
Ask the branch and we will tell you straight away what is possible for your time and area. We will not pretend it can always be arranged — it depends on who is working — but it is a reasonable thing to ask for and we would far rather you asked than went without a booking.
Yes, and at no extra charge. Under the Equality Act 2010 a licensed driver must carry an assistance dog, and the only lawful exception is a driver holding a medical exemption certificate issued by the licensing authority. Other pets are a separate question, covered on our pet friendly taxis page.
Tell the office when you book and we will arrange what we can. The law treats licensed vehicles differently from private cars: a child aged three or over may travel in the rear on an adult seat belt where a correct child seat is not available, and a child under three may travel in the rear of a licensed vehicle without one. That is the legal position rather than our preference — a properly fitted seat is always better, and the detail is on our child friendly taxis page.
Yes. Safeguarding and disability awareness training is part of the licensing standard, not an optional extra, and in practice the branches know which drivers are best suited to a wheelchair user, a passenger with dementia or a nervous child travelling alone. Tell the office what is needed when you book, in as much or as little detail as you want, and it is recorded against the job.
No, and no private hire vehicle anywhere in England can lawfully be hailed. Every journey has to be pre-booked through the licensed operator, which is why we take bookings by phone and through the booking form rather than from the kerb. Only hackney carriages — black cabs — may ply for hire, and the difference is explained on our minicab versus black cab page.
Both, and the order matters. A satnav is a tool, not local knowledge. It will send you from Epsom to Gatwick down the A217 because the distance reads shorter, which it is — by two tenths of a mile — while taking over an hour against roughly half that on the M23. Knowing which of two near-identical routes actually gets you to a 6am check-in is the part of the job that cannot be downloaded.
Phone the branch that took the booking with the date, the time and either the car or the driver’s badge number. Every job is logged against a driver, so we can identify who it was without you needing to prove anything. You also have the right to take it to the licensing authority, and we would rather you did both than neither. Compliments reach the driver the same way, and they do get passed on.
No. We are Clocktower Cars UK, based at the Clock Tower in Epsom, Surrey, with eleven branches across Surrey and south-west London. A similarly named firm operates in Ledbury in Herefordshire, roughly 150 miles away, and we are not connected to it. If you reached us looking for them, our numbers will not help you.
We take on licensed drivers across all eleven branches and will talk to applicants who are part way through licensing as well as those already badged. What the role involves and how to apply is on our careers page, or phone the branch nearest you.
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