Taxi Driver Online

Extra taxi spaces created to cater for Wolverhampton's clubbers

Extra taxi spaces are to created in a city centre to help keep revellers spilling out of nightclubs safe.

Wolverhampton council bosses have agreed to add four spaces in North Street and another eight in School Street.

The move has been agreed after officials said there was not enough taxis on the street to take clubbers home.

The new spaces are expected to be introduced ‘very soon’ according to licensing bosses.

Councillor Bishan Dass, chair of Wolverhampton City Council’s licensing committee, said: “The decision to increase taxi rank spaces in North Street and School Street follows months of consultation with the trade.

“This is aimed at providing a boost to the number of available taxis for visitors to the city centre at night.”

He added: “The other reason was because at night time there were not enough taxis on the streets to take revellers back home when they came out in the morning.

“Over the past many years we have seen queues at the ranks and sometimes there are people having trouble getting a taxi.”

Bosses have made the decision after it emerged last month that fights had been breaking out between taxi drivers in Wolverhampton - amid claims there were too many vehicles and not enough spaces.

Three taxi drivers have had their licences revoked since the start of the year for scrapping in the streets.

New figures from the council show that there has only been one new hackney carriage plying for trade in the city over the last year.

Councillor Dass said the new spaces would not prevent future fights as he did not believe the number of vehicles and lack of taxi ranks were to blame.

He said: “The new spaces will certainly help, particularly at night time for them to pick up their customers.

“I am not sure whether it will help to relieve the in-fighting, because the number of taxis is not the reason for them fighting.”

Taxi drivers have also said the additional spaces will not help stop the brawling, but they say it is because the move does not go far enough.

Parminder Sekhon, chairman of Wolverhampton Taxi Owners’ Association, said: “It’s unnecessary. They are not in the right spots. What is there in School Street? They are both night time ranks. It is just them trying to sweeten things up. They need to extend it in the main areas – look around Queen Square, where people can access cabs. It’s Queen Square where the revellers come out.”

Currently there are 43 taxi rank spaces in the city centre, shared between 167 Hackney Carriage drivers. School Street currently has no taxi spaces, while North Street has two.

The new spaces will be for black cabs only.

source: http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2014 ... -clubbers/

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