Taxi Driver Online

Falmouth Taxi driver's plea for support

A FALMOUTH taxi driver has questioned why Cornwall Council is not paying out financial support to help cabbies when other authorities in other parts of the country are lending a hand.

Mark Averiss, who has been a taxi driver in Falmouth for 13 years, said he asked the council for support after seeing other local councils giving cash to cabbies.

He said: “I contacted the council to see if there was any help available after seeing it happening elsewhere in the country.

“We were hearing every day about more councils which were providing grants to taxi drivers to help them through this period.”

However Mark says he was told by the council’s licensing department that there were no grants available from the council and advised to apply for the Self Employed Income Support Scheme (SEISS) or Universal Credit.

However the SEISS only provides financial support based on 80% of net profit and it is also not designed to cover costs such as vehicle maintenance payments and insurance premiums.

Mark said: “We have seen that holiday home owners have been able to claim tens of thousands of pounds in grants – we are working in Cornwall and having to have passengers sitting behind us in the car.

“In other areas taxi drivers have been helped by councils with money to put screens in their vehicles and PPE. We have had nothing.”

With many taxi drivers working from their own homes they have been unable to apply for previous government grant schemes as they are based on business rates.

However the discretionary grant schemes which are operated by councils should be able to help those who have been unable to access previous schemes.

A taxi industry magazine has listed those local councils which have been paying out grants to taxi drivers and listed Cornwall Council in its “named and shamed” section.

Mark said that it didn’t seem fair that drivers in other parts of the country were able to get financial help when other councils were not paying out.

He said that the last 12 months had been difficult for taxi drivers with the amount of trade dropping considerably.

Mark said that some drivers had been aided by having school contracts which had ensured that they still had regular work, but said that those without those were probably “70 to 80% down”.

He said that night time trade in particular had been hardest hit with people unable to go out during lockdown.

The cabbie said: “The night time income has vanished. On a normal Saturday night pre-covid we could get 100 calls, last night my brother didn’t have a single call and when I did a night recently I had one call – a £5 job.”

Mark said that he and his brother had taken on other jobs working as delivery drivers to help boost their income.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service asked Cornwall Council for a response to Mark’s comments but had not received a response at time of publishing.

However Cornwall Council Cabinet member Tim Dwelly, who has been overseeing the grant payments, said that he would be happy to speak with taxi drivers about the issue.

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