Taxi Driver Online

Crewe and Nantwich taxi drivers face ruin in market saturation

ANGRY taxi drivers say they’re on the road to ruin because there are too many cabbies chasing too few fares.

The Crewe and Nantwich Taxi Association says its members are struggling to make ends meet as Cheshire East continues to dish out Hackney Carriage plates, even though “the area is massively over-supplied”.

Drivers say there are simply too many taxis in Crewe and Nantwich. Between them, the towns currently have nearly 150 licensed drivers – about the same as Stoke but with a third of the population.

Association chairman Wilf Harding said: “We’re being sold out by the council who just see us as a cash cow.

“The current regulations state that if you turn up with a disabled access vehicle you can have a Hackney Carriage plate. There’s more and more taxis coming through but only six rank spaces in Crewe, and a part-time rank in Nantwich that operates at night.

“This area is massively over-supplied and we’re all struggling as a result.”

The taxi drivers want Cheshire East to stop issuing licences until surveys and investigations can be carried out.

“Most of the drivers here are doing a 70-hour week just to make ends meet. I know two or three who have gone bankrupt.

“At the moment we’re complaining, not demonstrating. Not yet anyway. But if the council doesn’t listen, we’ll be forced to take more direct action.”

http://www.crewechronicle.co.uk/crewe-n ... -26045501/

DRIVERS claim the problems are spilling into their home lives.

One driver, who did not wish to be named, said: “It’s not uncommon to wait for two-and-a-half hours and earn a £3.60 fare.

“We’re having to work more hours and stay out longer for less money, but we’ve got mouths to feed and mortgages to pay.

“ A lot of marriages are on the ropes as well. I’d never argued with my missus before, but it seems like that’s all we’ve done this year.”

Crewe and Nantwich MP Edward Timpson met the taxi drivers on Monday and promised he would do all he could to resolve the issue.

He said: “I have a meeting with the council on Friday to discuss the way forward.

“We need to make sure there is proper provision that meets the demand and needs of the local population.

“It’s an issue that needs to be looked at very carefully and it’s important we get enough feedback from these guys to get it right.”

No-one at Cheshire East was available for comment.

Thats quite common around here too.....I'm so f*cking poor its unreal, anyone want to buy my children?

CC

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

Just think guys & gals lower overheads all round, no hols, no income tax to pay, up to the limit on tax credits for your situations, less than the minimum working wage what more could we ask for......

If these drivers are working all the hours they say they are, when do they have time to argue with the wife?

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Grandad,

Have to think up plenty of sob stories if you want all these sympathetic LA's to feel for them......

Children as a package no.... but I might consider buying the rights.... to your son's football career....

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Justice for the 96. It has only taken 27 years...........repeat the same lies for 27 years and the truth sounds strange to people!

Don't think the Equality Bill amendment will alter that, unless they all go WAV and the council restricts.

Slim chances of that happening in my view.

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IDFIMH

Personally I don't give a toss anymore (and that's not for the want of trying!!)..... I personally believe that the trade here as most other areas are going to find their earnings more and more depleted...... It's all down to their ineptitude, greed, no backbone and the act in general. To fight for their local situations..... some will some won't..... here they won't, so survival of the strongest, fittest (and greediest) will win through....
I think that is what central and local government actually want.....

Same old story of agents providing work for PH and not having a licence but at least they are upstairs from a PH company that does have a licence

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Note to self: Just because it pops into my head does NOT mean it should come out of my mouth!!

Do Westside still work out of Crewe? We used to use them when we were agents for EWS Railways. They were a cracking set up and never let us down.

I hope you're wrong & that LAs that are saloon Hackneys or predominantly so at present, will only need to get to the proportion of WAV Hackneys to saloon Hackneys that is to be stipulated by the Minister.

Although it does not matter in Brum because we're 100% WAV already.

But some of our lads are hoping that if the Minister sets minimum proportions of WAV to saloon Hackneys, they might be allowed to license saloons as Hackneys in Brum.

We'll have to wait & see on that one, but personally I would be surprised if that came about.

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Kind regards,

Brummie Cabbie.

Type a message, post your news,
Disagree with other members' views;
But please, do have some decorum,
When debating on the TDO Forum.

Thanks Nigel yes we do, and thank you very much, and we got £10,000 out of Fraser Eagle the week before they went tits up, and we told Connect Point to f**k off!
I do agree with what bigbadwolf has to say about the situation in Crewe, as I see it they have brought the problem on themselves, a few years ago you struggled to get a hackney carriage in Nantwich (busy town for night life) on a Saturday night as the hackneys were taking their money from Crewe railway station in the week and weren't really bothered about working nights, there were crowds of people waiting for taxis that never came and these people started getting used to using private hire cars. Then we had an influx of drivers from ethnic minorities who got themselves hackney carriages as they saw this gap, and who can blame them. They also startred working the railway station much to the annoyance of the other hackney drivers whose takings obviously went down, so much so that they had to start working weekend nights. It has got to the point that Nantwich is now saturated with Taxis and they are struggling. We on the other hand have been doing well we try and keep a good mixture of account work and cash work we get our company vehicles to do most of the acccount work and our owner drivers cover the majority of the cash work, and it seems to work, we have increased our weekly jobs total by over 1000 over these past 12 months and things are looking good for us.
A lot of hackney drivers have what we call "rank mentality" in fact not long ago we had a hackney driver come to work within our system because he couldn't get by working the rank anymore. On his first day after a few hours he declared that he had taken more than he would have done all day working the rank, two weeks later he said he was leaving as he couldn't get used to doing private hire work, he actually said he couldn't do with going from job to job. So he went back to the rank and then a couple of months later quit the trade for good.
We still have times when we are turning work away and driving around like idiots, and each time we drive through the town centre the hackneys are all parked up in a line moaning about how life is so unfair to them, they need to learn to adapt otherwise they will go the way of the dinosaurs!

westside1 i agree with your statement ,