A very long wait! (24/9/2003)

How would Halcrow assess this sort of wait for a taxi in Brighton?

Remember when…

In the year Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her jubilee, a licensed private hire driver in Brighton put his name down on the hackney carriage waiting list. This month he has been offered a hackney carriage plate, via that list.

Nothing strange in that you may say, apart from the fact that Her Majesty was celebrating her silver jubilee at that time, not her golden one.

In those 26 years a lot has happened, politically we have seen the rise and fall of Thatcher, the greyness of Major, and (some say) the falseness of Blair. We have had the Falklands war, two Gulf wars and the fall of the Berlin war. But throughout all of these momentous events, the lad from Brighton has, each and every March, diligently filled in his hackney carriage waiting list form.

Who’s to blame?
So who has let this chap and many of his colleagues down, or are we saying that 26 years is just fine and dandy? Was he to blame for believing in fairness and equality in the hackney carriage and private hire trades, or is he just a fool for believing in such basic rights. Has he been let down by drivers' associations and unions, or is this what the T&G mean by a ‘managed growth’ policy?

However, if I was a betting person, my money would be on inefficient and out-dated legislation, operated at a local level by spineless officials and councillors, who just want an easy life, and if that chap had to wait for over half his working life for that easy life to be maintained, well so be it.