ROUND THE COUNCILS PEMBROKESHIRE:
BRISTOL: NEW RULES FOR TAXIS
Taxi drivers in Bristol have been issued with safety advice to protect both cus- tomers and drivers during the Covid-19 pandemic. BristolLive reports that the Bristol City Council guidance includes cleaning vehicles between journeys, not carry- ing multiple pas- sengers from differ- ent households, as well as customer seating arrange- ments and encour- aging card payment methods. Drivers should also ensure their vehicles are compliant and their own health is not putting anyone at risk and provide
reasonable assis- tance to passengers who require it, including those using wheelchairs. Councillor Kye Dudd, Cabinet Mem- ber for Transport at Bristol City Council, said: “Drivers too are worried for the impact the pandem- ic is having on custom and want to be able to return to work safely. “We want to build up confidence in them as one of the safest forms of our transport network.” Councillor Ruth Pickersgill, chair of Bristol City Council’s Public Safety and Protection Commit- tee, said: “We have
been strongly urg- ing the Government to provide national guidance to protect the taxi trade across the country as there have been a dispro- portionate number of deaths of drivers nationally and as the majority of our drivers are from black and ethnic minority groups they are particularly at risk from this virus. “Taxis are also the only public trans- port available to many disabled and older people and I am really pleased that, in Bristol, we are doing what we can to make them as safe as possible.”
NEW CONDITIONS FOR TAXIS ON HOLD
Councillors are being asked to stop new taxi driver applications until further notice. The extra MoT inspections carried out on HCs and PHVs are also requested to be cancelled, a report to Pembrokeshire County Council’s Urgency Committee states. Other conditions are asked to be sus- pended for an initial period of three months including
producing driver badges at renewal and medical certifi- cates,
in cases
where they are required. Renewal applications can still be made via email. The licensing team is making the rec- ommendation to suspend new appli- cations as “pro- cessing any one of these applications necessitates face to face contact with the applicant.” A full medical cer- tificate from the
READING: FARE RISE DELAYED BY CORONAVIRUS
A planned taxi fare rise in Reading will be delayed due to the coronavirus pan- demic. BerkshireLive, re- ports that in Feb- ruary Reading Bor- ough Council’s licensing committee agreed to increase daytime fares by an average of 3.75 per cent, subject to there being no ob- jections. But after one passenger com- plained they do not deserve the rise, councillors will now vote again. The unnamed indi- vidual said drivers do not help the cus- tomers with their bags when loading or unloading and are “often unfriendly and surly”. Licensing officers have recommended the plans be ap- proved regardless of the resident’s con- cerns, which they
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say are “not rele- vant” but they have warned the Covid-19 crisis will delay the roll-out of the increased fares. This is because offi- cers will have to replace program- mable chips in the taxi meters of around 240 cars and this currently “would expose staff to unnecessary risks of engaging with a wide range of peo- ple and vehicles”. The fare increase will only affect rides between 6am and 10pm as drivers said keeping the current night-time fare would help them to compete with Uber. The Reading Taxi Association pro- posed increasing the fares and these proposals were ap- proved on 7 Feb- ruary by the licens- ing committee. It is the first increase
to taxi fares in a few years, but Asif Rashid, chairman of the association, said drivers would rather have “smaller in- creases more often” instead of “one big increase every five years”. A council policy introduced last October means all taxis must be elec- tric or ultra-low emission vehicles by 2028. Mr Rashid explained in Febru- ary why taxi drivers needed to increase fares. He said: “We have had nothing for two and half years. We have had our licensing fees increased since then. We’re also expected to replace our vehicles be- cause of the new emissions policy. It all adds up. The longer we leave it, the bigger the in- crease we will need.”
JUNE 2020
applicant’s GP is also required but not possible to obtain currently. Instead of driving badges the licensing will generate an A4 licence template, with photograph, for drivers to display, if councillors approve the changes. The urgency com- mittee is being asked to consider the changes on Thursday, May 28 with the licensing committee not cur- rently meeting.
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