ROUND THE COUNCILS
MALVERN HILLS: FARE INCREASE REJECTED
Taxi fares will not be rising in Malvern despite a call by drivers after council- lors agreed to freeze prizes for at least another year. According to the Ludlow Advertiser, Malvern Hills District Council’s executive committee rejected a call by the town’s taxi drivers to put up prices saying the cost of using a taxi was already expen- sive and fuel prices had dropped. Councillors rejected a call by the town’s taxi drivers to put up prices by ten per cent to £4.40 for a one-mile journey last
Sep- tember but agreed
to meet to find a compromise. The three options put forward include keeping prices the same, keeping the first mile the same and charging more for every extra mile or increasing the cost of the first mile by an extra 10p and also charging more for every extra mile. If councillors had decided to increase fares, the base fare would have risen from £4 to £4.10 with each extra mile also rising by 10p from £2.50 to £2.60. Taxi drivers argued the increase is need- ed because of the rise in the living wage, inflation and
council tax as well as rises in bus and train tickets. Alistair Smith, trade representative for HCs and PHVs in Malvern, said the liv- ing wage had risen by 30 per cent since the last fare increase and fares would need to rise by around 15 per cent to cover the cost. Despite not increas- ing fares for six years, Malvern al- ready has the most expensive two-mile journey in the coun- ty at £6.40. As the cost of hiring a taxi in Malvern is decided yearly, fare prices will be back before councillors later in the year.
NEWCASTLE-UNDER-LYME: NEW TAXI CHARGES SLAMMED
New charges came into force for taxi drivers in Newcastle on 6 May – despite more than 150 let- ters being sent to the council object- ing to the rises. Cabbies wanting to change the colour of their vehicle will be charged £43, while a 'spot check' fee will be £25 and disability training will cost £35 plus VAT. The Stoke Sentinel reports that some existing charges are set to be increased, such as safeguard- ing training which will go up from £36.50 to £38. But a number of other charges are set to decrease, such as replacement vehicle plates, while other fees, including exception vehicle tests, are being scrapped. Members of the council’s Licensing and Public Protec- tion Committee agreed for the changes to come into force at their lat- est virtual meeting. The council held a consultation on the proposed charges for 2020/21 earlier this year and re- ceived 159 responses. Members of the taxi trade had already warned the changes would lead to the borough council los- ing money as more drivers would switch their licences to other authorities, such as Stoke-on- Trent and Wolver- hampton. Trevor Colclough, manager of Sid's Pri- vate Hire, said the
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changes were com- ing at a time when drivers had seen their takings plum- met. The company’s nor- mal fleet level of more than 100 vehi- cles has been reduced to just 35 during the coron- avirus pandemic and national lockdown – and many drivers were having to self- isolate or were effectively taking home less than mini- mum wage, while still having to pay their overheads. He said: “I can’t understand why it costs so much com- pared to other councils it
is
nowhere near as much. It wasn’t justi- fiable before – it feels like a kick in the teeth in the climate we are in now. We should be working together. “We could have mothballed the company but what we did was reduce our rates by 25%. I am so proud of our fleet because they are out there trans- ferring care home staff, nurses and other key workers when they need to get to work. “Drivers may only get £4 an hour, but we’re working 24 hours a day and keeping the country going.” Shahraz Yaqub, who represents
the
Stoke-on-Trent Pri- vate Hire Driver's Association, said: “Newcastle Council needs to open its eyes. In 18 months, they’ll probably be
left with 300 drivers, if that. At Wolver- hampton, everything is online, you don’t need to be chasing licensing officers for an appointment that they can’t even give you for months. “It’s a no brainer. They do a one-day education course, all your licensing condi- tions, safeguarding, disability awareness. You don’t even have to go to Wolver- hampton. They will come to Stoke-on- Trent if you get 20 or more drivers to go on the course. “In Newcastle, dri- vers have been driving for 12 years, then all of a sudden they’ve got to re-do the knowledge test again.” A report to the meeting said: “The proposed fees have been calculated to ensure the council recovers the full cost of administering the service, whilst bear- ing in mind the legal provisions in relation to this. The cost of administering the service has in- creased overall as there are many new provisions for the team to consider, review and adminis- ter under the new council licensing pol- icy, and there has been a significant change in the case law enabling coun- cils to recover fees for enforcement costs against drivers. “Not all of the pro- posed fees are in- creases from 2019/ 20 fees. Several have reduced or are new fees altogether.”
JUNE 2020
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