Warning over cab numbers
HACKNEY cab drivers are warning there could be fewer of them in Basingstoke if the borough council goes ahead with its plans.
Legal rulings in other parts of England have left licensing officials at Basingstoke and Deane warning that a limit on the number of hackneys in the borough can no longer be justified.
The London-style cabs can be being flagged down or hired from ranks and are currently limited to 55. Borough licensing officers say the cap on numbers cannot be kept unless a survey is carried out to assess customer demand. Only if there is no significant unmet demand can the limit be maintained, they say.
Members of the borough’s licensing committee will be asked on Tuesday to decide whether to delimit the number of cabs or maintain the quota and carry out the survey.
But with no council budget for the estimated £15,000 survey cost, officers have suggested a one-off £273 levy on each hackney cab driver to pay for it, should councillors wish to maintain the limit.
Melvyn Leaman, chairman of Basingstoke Hackney Carriage Federation, said cabbies were already struggling for work so delimiting was not a good idea. He said: “They could end up with fewer cabs than they have got now.”
He said eight drivers were due to retire and with the proposed survey levy added to other set-up costs, it was unlikely there would be many people willing to replace them in a recession.
This week, cabbies were voting to decide what their response to the council assessment should be. The borough council has already conducted a survey of hackney cab and private hire vehicle drivers which indicated that 95 per cent of the respondents felt the maximum limit was either correct or already too high.
No passengers or user-groups responding to the consultation felt the availability of hackney carriages in the borough was poor.
source:
http://www.basingstokegazette.co.uk/new ... b_numbers/
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