Cabbies back licence plans (From York Press)

Cabbies back licence plans

3:30pm Wednesday 5th September 2007 in News By Haydn Lewis, haydn.lewis@thepress.co.uk

CABBIES in York have welcomed plans to grant a specific number of taxi licences each year.

Representatives from York Taxi Association and York Private Hire Association will be meeting with councillors this week to discuss the plans ahead of a council meeting next week.

At a meeting on Monday, councillors will be asked to choose from one of four options.

The city council currently limits the number of hackney carriages - those that can pick up at ranks or can be hailed in the street - to 158.

But the council is under pressure from central government to remove restrictions on the number of hackney carriages and councillors must consider four options.

These are:

• To maintain the existing limit on hackney carriage licences
• To deregulate and thereby grant a taxi licence to anyone meeting the application criteria
• To grant a number of new licences to meet the unmet demand
• To grant a specific number of licences each year.

Council officers have recommended councillors choose the last option.

Stuart Robertson, vice chairman of the York Taxi Association, said: "We are delighted that the officers have rejected the deregulation option and gone for something which seems to us to be a more reasoned approach.

"We will be seeking some clarification in the coming days and also meeting with the main political parties on the council to discuss this further before next weeks meeting."

Any plans to deregulate the city's taxis have been greeted with condemnation from all sides.

Barry Hamer, the chairman of York's Private Hire Association, said: "I think deregulation would be bad for the city and cause a great deal of problems with everything from increased pollution from the increased number of taxis on the roads in the city centre to problems for disabled people getting taxis during the day.

"In Sheffield they did it and are now having second thoughts, and in Newcastle they are trying to get it reversed."

After next week's meeting, the final decision on the taxis will be made by the council's licensing and regulatory committee on Friday, November 2.