Taxi Driver Online

Cannock taxi office allowed to open until 4am

https://www.expressandstar.com/news/loc ... until-4am/

A taxi booking office can now stay open later in Cannock town centre at weekends to provide a safe space for customers waiting for their cab home.

Corkys was granted permission by Cannock Chase Council in April to open a new booking office at High Green. Conditions of the approval included closing the office to customers at 10pm, while staff were able to remain there until 1am.

Now the office in Victoria New Hall can remain open for both customers and staff until 4am Thursday to Saturday, as well as on bank and public holidays, after Cannock Chase Council allowed an extension of opening hours.

The council’s licensing department raised concerns about the plans.

A report to the planning committee said: “The willingness to employ a taxi marshal at the premises may be helpful if permission is granted, but for us, it serves to reinforce our concerns in so far as Corkys Cars can also clearly envisage some difficulties arising from having a booking office within the town centre and just a few yards from the official taxi rank.

“Although I recognise that the town centre environment can be busy, lively and at times noisy, we don’t believe that the proposed office will be a benign addition to that environment and does have the potential for increased noise nuisance late at night or early into the morning as well as potential for an increase in anti-social behaviour.”

But planning committee members unanimously approved the application at their meeting on Wednesday.

Steven Toy, trade leader to the Hackney Carriage Private Hire Liaison Group and board member of the National Private Hire and Taxi Association, spoke in support of the proposal.

He said: “I believe that it is in the interest, not just of the taxi trade but passengers, that these hours are extended. In the UK we currently have a shortage of taxi drivers so if there is a high demand people will be waiting,

“The taxi rank is fine when demand isn’t too high. But if you go to the taxi rank at periods of high demand there will be a crowd of people waiting and there’s no guarantee as to when you will get a taxi.

“If you are at the back of the queue you have no idea when you are going to get home – and if you are a vulnerable person you may not want to be there, especially if people have had a lot to drink. You may feel intimidated.

“The office is a place of safety for that half an hour you have to wait. There is a human presence, with someone taking bookings and a marshall, allowing vulnerable people to wait somewhere safe.”

As far as I know, the NHPTA's Mr Toy works as an owner-driver on a circuit in Rugeley, which is a town about six miles from Cannock.

But presumably they're far enough away not to be in competition with Corky's (which seems to be a PH circuit), or presumably Mr Toy wouldn't have supported the application?

But I doubt the NPHTA's HC members will be too impressed by the organisation's support for an office close to a HC rank, particularly when the local LO is objecting

If this link works, this is the small (three/four cars) rank in question. There's a pub in the white building at the centre of the image, and the office seems to be in the cream-coloured building to the right of it. Move up the StreetView and it's signed 'Newhall'.

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.6897081 ... 384!8i8192

Doesn't look too nighttime economy-ish, but there's certainly a few pubs in the area, and there's also a bigger feeder rank down beside another pub. Looks potentially messy as it is, never mind with a PH office opening not far from the front of the rank

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.6898788 ... 384!8i8192

This shows the first car on the feeder rank, with the three car front rank also shown. The new office is beyond the bushes, roughly in line with where the yellow no parking signs are on the lamppost and about 100 yards away:

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.6898788 ... 384!8i8192

The reason to have the office there is to take work from the rank, else why would anyone pay silly rent/rates when you can operator nowadays from your frontroom.

Now I don't have a problem with that, but let's be honest about this stuff and stop all the bo*****s about 'place of safety'.

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IDFIMH

If a TAXI rank is busy at a certain time then all private hire circuits are busy at the same time, if I was a person who booked my vehicle for a certain time I would be most upset if someone walked into an office and got a vehicle before me.