Sevenoaks Taxi Fares Set to Rise 10% - and It's the Last of West Kent's Four Boroughs to Catch Up

If you're waving down a black cab in Sevenoaks, the maximum fare you can be charged is about to go up for the first time in over four years. Sevenoaks District Council's Licensing Committee meets on 3 November to decide on a proposed 10% rise to the borough's hackney carriage fare tariff - and if agreed, it would take effect from 1 December. Sevenoaks is the last of West Kent's four boroughs to get here: Maidstone, Tonbridge & Malling and Tunbridge Wells have each already pushed through their own fare increases over the past year and a half, all citing broadly the same pressures on drivers.

Council officers are recommending a flat 10% increase across the maximum fare tariff - the first change since May 2022. It only sets a ceiling: drivers can still charge less than the maximum if they choose. A collective response from 74 licensed drivers, submitted during the council's consultation, asked for more than the 10% on the table: moving the night surcharge to start at 9pm or 10pm rather than 11pm, raising the night surcharge itself to £2.40 rather than the officer-recommended £2.20, and a bigger Bank Holiday surcharge of £2.57 instead of £2.44. Officers partly justified the rise using official government fuel price data, pointing to how much fuel costs have moved since the last tariff was set back in 2022.

Maidstone's Licensing Committee approved its own fare increase in September 2025, after the trade told the council it was facing a 30% rise in vehicle insurance costs and a 50% rise in vehicle upkeep costs - that increase has already been in effect for over a year. Tonbridge & Malling's current tariff, in place since around mid-2025, shows the starting fare for the first two-thirds of a mile at £5, up from £4 before the change - a roughly 25% rise, the biggest proportional jump of the four boroughs in recent years. Tunbridge Wells last changed its fares in December 2024, following a review that opened that November - its first adjustment since April 2022, the same starting point Sevenoaks is only now moving on from.

Sevenoaks' own committee papers include a direct comparison with neighbouring authorities, calculated by the council itself for a standard 5-mile daytime journey - giving a rare like-for-like figure rather than just headline percentages. Maidstone isn't part of this particular comparison, since it doesn't border Sevenoaks and wasn't included in the council's exercise, but Tonbridge & Malling and Tunbridge Wells both are.

If the 10% rise goes through, Sevenoaks would move from being roughly in the middle of its West Kent neighbours to clearly the most expensive of the three for a typical journey - though all three remain within a couple of pounds of each other either way.

Maidstone's exclusion from Sevenoaks' own comparison was only ever about geography, not a lack of data - and an independent trade source fills the gap. Private Hire & Taxi Monthly (PHTM), an industry publication that tracks and publishes hackney carriage fares for every licensing authority in the country daily, puts Maidstone's cost for a 2-mile journey at £9.00 - identical to Tonbridge & Malling, and higher than both Sevenoaks' current £8.70 and Tunbridge Wells' £8.60 on the same measure. That's a different distance than the council's own 5-mile comparison, but the ranking lines up: Tunbridge Wells cheapest, Sevenoaks in the middle for now, Tonbridge & Malling among the priciest - with Maidstone matching Tonbridge & Malling at the top.

None of the four councils' reviews happened in coordination with each other - each sets its own fares independently, based on its own local consultation with its own licensed trade. But the reasoning lines up across the board: rising insurance, fuel and vehicle maintenance costs for drivers, with councils weighing that against what residents can reasonably be asked to pay for a regulated maximum fare. Sevenoaks' decision on 3 November will be the one to watch - not least because its own trade has made clear 10% isn't what they asked for.

Source: Sevenoaks District Council, Licensing Committee agenda, 3 November 2026, including its neighbouring-authority fare comparison; Maidstone Borough Council, Hackney Carriage Fare Increase 2025; Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council, taxi fare chart; Tunbridge Wells Borough Council, hackney carriage fares; Private Hire & Taxi Monthly, national hackney fare tables