ANGRY taxi drivers are planning to challenge a decision by council chiefs to remove a taxi rank at York Railway Station.

A public notice from City of York Council printed in Tuesday's Evening Press announced that the Hackney Carriage status of the six-taxi stand on the central isle of Station Road would be revoked.

The rank is additional to the taxi rank underneath the station portico, directly in front of the station building.

Removing the taxi stand is part of ongoing plans for a £636,000 revamp of the station frontage.

Independent taxi driver Bill Brolly, who has driven taxis in York for 20 years, said he and his fellow taxi drivers operating from the central stand would fight the decision.

He said: "We will be fighting this all the way because we need this taxi rank outside the station. If we can't pick up people from there anymore, we will lose a lot of money in lost fares."

Mr Brolly, 57, dismissed any suggestion that the central rank posed a danger to people crossing the road to get a taxi.

He said: "People tend to wave from the pavement at the bus stops on either side of the rank and we pick them up from there.

"In all the years I've worked that stand, there hasn't been a safety problem with it."

The taxi drivers would be consulting with their union, the GMB Union, on how to combat the council's plans, said Mr Brolly, who is himself a union representative.

Fellow union representative Len Bardy, who has worked as a taxi driver in York for the past five years, agreed that losing the taxi rank would lose him business.

He said: "It feels like we have been shot in the foot. It will be total chaos at the station once this happens."

But a City of York Council spokeswoman said: "We don't yet know when the taxi rank will be removed. The revocation is as a direct result of the scheme to improve York station frontage, which deals with a range of improvements to bus stop facilities, pedestrian crossings, cycling and access to the railway station."

She said the council was in talks with GNER about an idea to have taxis queuing in the GNER long stay car park before funnelling into the portico.

But Mr Brolly said that plan was flawed.

He said: "As I understand it, there won't be any spaces permanently reserved for taxis in the long stay car park. If we can't get a space, we'll have to move on and will miss out on a fare."

Updated: 08:43 Thursday, November 11, 2004