This is a first draft of the letter im sending to the councillors along with the OFT report, a letter from the national taxi assosiation and the Equalities act.
Do you think i'm heading in the right direction? i'm going to complete the letter over the weekend so hopefully it will be on their desks on monday morning. the meeting is on friday.
To Whom It May Concern:
I have been asked to speak at the meeting on the 5th November on behalf of the St. Austell & Newquay Taxi Association. I have enclosed some information that I feel is relevant to this meeting.
Having read all 247 pages of the consultation report I feel it is important to point out some issues.
http://democracy.cornwall.gov.uk/Publis ... Public.pdf
The vast majority of the public do not know the difference between a Hackney Carriage and Private Hire. Therefore asking the public to comment on something they do not understand should have no bearing on the outcome of the consultation. If the public understood the difference and were fully aware of the consequences of de-limitation then the public response would have been very different.
Please see page 198 of the consultation of the report. First of all there are two private hire vehicles that operate in the St. Mawes area, not one. The hotel manager clearly does not know the difference between a Hackney Carriage and Private Hire. Also, he is probably also not aware that Private Hire Vehicles are not limited. De-limiting the number of Hackney carriages will not improve the situation in St. Mawes. If there was a greater demand there would be more vehicles serving the area. Putting 5 Hackney Carriages on a rank in St. Mawes will not increase demand. This is just one of the many rural areas that are not particularly well served by Private Hire or Hackney Carriage Vehicles. A couple private hire firms recently set up in Bugle and Roche (rural areas near St. Austell), there was a lack of demand and they lasted less than 6 months. De-regulating Hackney Carriages will not solve this problem. The hotel manager and members of the public need to understand that in order to provide a service, it needs to be profitable. When this consultation was sent out there should have been some information outlining the differences between the two trades and different services they provide. Also, it should have been clearly pointed out that Private Hire Vehicles are not limited.
I feel it is very important to differentiate the difference between The Private Hire trade and the Hackney Carriage Trade because although we operate in the same sector, we provide different services to the general public. All of the restricted zones have large private hire businesses that provide a valuable service to the public. The large firms operate many vehicles and have the ability to offer services that the Hackney trade cannot. For example, large private hire firms are able to offer 24 hour service; they have the man power to provide this service. You cannot expect an independent taxi driver to offer a 24 hour service. Because the Private Hire trade need advanced bookings they accept will accept the majority of fares. This is invaluable to the large number of people that live and work in the many rural areas our county has. If the council was to deregulate many of these private hire drivers would decide to become hackney carriage drivers. These large private hire fleets would lose drivers along with the valuable service they provide.
Although Hackney Carriage Firms do carry out some private hire work, the majority of our work comes via the taxi ranks; after all, that is where we should be. A previous unmet demand survey found that there is no unmet demand, and there certainly is not enough taxi rank space in any of the regulated zones for more taxis.
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The Equalities Act of 2010 bears significant relevance and as we will not know the full details of this Act until the end of this year we can only speculate on what they might decide.
The National Taxi Association believe that the Equalities Act of 2010 will stop all restricting councils from refusing to licence a new Wheelchair Accessible Vehicle (WAV’s), if they have a lower ratio of WAV’s to taxi saloons than a percentage to be set by the Secretary of State. This percentage is thought to be set at around 50%.
Current %’s in regulated zones
Carrick- 13 WAV’s out of 82. 15.85%
Restormel- 11 WAV’s out of 75. 14.66%
Penwith- 10 WAV’s out of 39. 25.64%
With this in mind I have come up with the scenarios the council could be faced with.
Scenario 1 - The Council decide to de-regulate the regulated zones
The council issue hackney carriage licences for new WAV’s. Using current figures, to comply with the probable 50% rule, at least another 55 hackney plates would have to be issued in the Restormel zone. All of these would have to be new vehicles (£20,000+) and I suggest the majority if not all would be on Hire Purchase. Instead of 75 Hackney carriage vehicles there are now 130 in the Restormel zone. This, in a zone with no unmet demand when there was 75.
New %’s
Carrick – 69 WAV’s out of 138. 50% (an increase of 56 vehicles)
Restormal - 66 WAV’s out of 130. 50.76% (an increase of 55 vehicles)
Penwith – 30 WAV’s out of 59. 50.84% (an increase of 20 vehicles)
Do the three regulated Zones have enough rank space for the additional vehicles and can the private hire businesses in these zones handle losing this many drivers?
Scenario 2 - The Council decide for the 3 regulated zones to stay regulated
The current hackney carriage operators would require a specified amount of time to comply with the new legislation. If they fail to meet the deadline, a set number of new hackney carriage licences issued to bring the Hackney Carriage fleet up to the specified percentage.
Carrick would need current operators to provide another 28 WAV’s
Restormel would need current operators to provide another 27 WAV’s
Penwith would need current operators to provide another 10 WAV’s
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It is in the best interests of the public to keep both private hire and hackney carriages. If you dilute our workload between more taxis it is inevitable that the high standards we maintain will be gone. Cars cost a lot of money to keep on the road. If a car is making less money the taxi trade will inevitable end up making compromises. Is this in the best interest of the public?
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