STRENGTH IN UNITY
SWINDON HACKNEY SALOON DRIVERS UNITE TO CHALLENGE THEIR COUNCIL AND WIN
Swindon hackney saloon drivers have united to challenge a council decision and won. This success has led them to resurrect a dormant taxi association to fight future unfair impositions the council wants to enforce on cabbies.
The drivers, headed by Mark Bates, Mustafa Yilmaz and Ijaz Miyakhail, told PHTM: “We have forced Swindon BC to reverse a decision made in March of this year to no longer allow existing hackney saloon drivers to change the vehicles associated with their plates.
“As hackney saloon vehicles in Swindon only have a working life of 10 years, it meant that all hackney saloon vehicles would be phased out by 2034 in favour of a wholly wheelchair accessible fleet.
“This is something Swindon BC has tried to do before. The previous occasion the council tried to do this was about 10 years ago and was supported by a disability action group. However, the support of the disability action group disappeared when a couple invited by Mark Bates made the action group aware that not all disabled people can easily get into wheelchair accessible vehicles, and the motion was dropped.
“However, this time, the council didn’t invite a disability action group. And even though the motion went against current government guidelines, the motion was voted upon and was passed.
“This despite another disabled person, who was invited, explaining how she cannot get into WAVs.
“Kate Bishop, Swindon BC’s head of regulatory services, was asked three times what this person was supposed to do if the ban went ahead. On each occasion she answered everything except this question, eventually when pressed, she simply said: ‘I don’t know.’
“Now this was a completely unacceptable answer to all the drivers present at the meeting. So when the motion was voted on and passed we gained support from fellow drivers legally challenge it and managed to secure around £8,000 from drivers that would have been affected by the ban.
36 Mark Bates & Mustafa Yilmaz outside Swindon council
“After this, we appointed a reputable local solicitor who instructed a barrister to prepare papers to submit to the council with a view to doing a judicial review in the courts. But after lots of emails back and forth between the solicitors, the council and ourselves, the council finally conceded and reversed the ban!”
Following the successful conclusion of the case, Mark, Mustafa and Ijaz have decided, with the support of the trade, to resurrect the dormant taxi association as there are new fights on the horizon.
They explained: “The first fight is to either force the council via legal means to respond to every email the Swindon association sends under threat of a legal vote of no confidence in the licensing department.
“And then to fight a tyrannical points-based system from being introduced that would see a driver get points on the taxi licence just for using the bathroom at the train station.
“Another is having the engine running to keep warm in the winter whilst parked up. Our argument is simply that the council uses fossil fuels to heat up their offices so what’s the difference?
“These are just a couple of the numerous impositions that the council wants to force on us, and it feels to some that the council is at war with their drivers.”
So all we can say is watch this space…. AUGUST 2024 PHTM
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72
