MENTIONING MARSHALS
WATFORD CABBIES WELCOME CAMERAS AT MARSHALLED RANK
Passengers at a Wat- ford taxi rank will be filmed by CCTV cam- eras and asked to provide ID before they are allowed to travel. Watford Borough Coun- cil, which announced the measures last month, is hoping to improve driver safety after a series of violent attacks by drunken thugs.
Night-time passengers at the busy Rick- mansworth Road taxi rank will now be filmed by the specialist taxi marshals as they wait in the queue - a meas- ure that, the council hopes, will prevent rowdy and violent behaviour in the early hours of the morning.
In addition, all passen- gers will be asked to provide marshals with ID before they leave. These details will be kept on file for 31 days, or passed to the police if and when a driver is attacked. The measures are part of the Altogether Safer Watford Campaign, which brings together the police, the council, community groups and various pubs and clubs.
A network of six “safe havens” have been identified on major routes leading out of the town centre. Drivers feeling threatened can stop at any one of these - which are well-lit and covered by CCTV - and
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call the police.
The changes come after many months of pressure from the Wat- ford Hackney Carriage Drivers’ Association, which had warned that a driver “could be killed” if action was not taken.
Adil Butt, of the associ- ation, had campaigned for action after a series of vicious assaults ear- lier this year. He told the Watford Observer: “It’s fantas- tic news. As drivers we are all very happy about it. This is a very good step from the council and definitely a step in the right direction. It shows that they have listened to our concerns.”
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NORWICH CABBIES’ FEAR FOR BUSINESS OVER MARSHALLING CHARGE
Taxi passengers could soon be asked to pay £1 to catch a cab from Norwich’s Tombland under plans to secure the future of the city’s marshalling scheme. But there are fears the charge - on top of existing fares - could lead cabbies and pun- ters alike to desert the rank in favour of pick- ups further along the street.
The initiative, launched in 2008, was initially financed by security firms as a trial; it later attracted Home Office funding and was then kept afloat by dona- tions from pubs, clubs and restaurants in the Prince of Wales Road area. Funds ran out this sum- mer and there were fears that the scheme could be withdrawn if other means of financ- ing it were not found. But Norwich City Licensing Forum has been looking at ways
to make the Tombland scheme self-support- ing and hopes to roll it out to other marshalled ranks elsewhere in the city centre, possibly extending the mar- shals’ hours until 6am. Its working party has now approved a pro- posal for a charge of £1 per cab, which passen- gers would pay via a ticket machine in Tomb- land, and agreed to ask licensed businesses in the area to refund the charge on receipt of a dated ticket.
Members hope that if the city council gives permission for the ticket machine to be installed in Tombland, the new scheme could be up and running by November. Julian Foster, chairman of the City Centre Safer Neighbourhood Action Panel, told the Norwich Evening News: “I am delighted that we have at last broken through the obstruction experi-
enced elsewhere in the country caused by a lack of public funding to retain the marshals. “I hope, too, that the public will appreciate the opportunity it pro- vides to make a night out in Norwich a safe experience at a mini- mal extra cost; a means for businesses to contribute towards that cost if they wish and a service to partic- ipating cab drivers that will ensure their cabs are not mis- used.”
But cab driver Patrick Keenaghan said the scheme would drive business away from the Tombland rank. “If people have to pay £1, they are just going to flag down a cab a few yards down the road where they don’t have to pay,” he said. “This will make life even more difficult for drivers who are already working 18 hours a day just to pay the bills.”
PHTM SEPTEMBER 2010
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