Shortage: Driver Mark Selley
Spot-checks are to be carried out on taxi drivers who rank illegally across Preston city centre.
Hackney carriages have been seen using various locations, which are not designated ranks, to stop and wait for customers.
Today, licensing chiefs at the Town Hall said they would crack down on the bad practices but taxi drivers said a shortage of rank space was to blame.
Drivers were seen using Friargate, close to the Greyfriar pub, on Saturday night, and the former Corporation Street rank outside the new hotel on Friday night.
Mark Selley, secretary of the Preston Hackney Carriage Association, said there were 187 black cabs serving the city and said: “If you’ve got 150 vehicles working on an evening and you’ve only got 30 actual rank spaces, surely the council can’t expect drivers to drive around the town centre because how can that be environmentally-friendly?
“They’re just parking up and waiting to go on an actual rank.
“There’s a shortage and there has been for many years.
“We can only make suggestions to the city council as to where appropriate rank spaces should be.
“Then they’ve got to go to the county council to see if a rank can be implemented,” Mr Selley added.
“Sometimes it’s like banging your head against a brick wall.”
Mike Thorpe, head of licensing at Preston Council, said staff would be doing out-of-hours enforcement and said: “We regularly review the night-time activity in terms of over-ranking on existing ranks and illegal ranking where no rank exists.
“We do that regularly and we will be due another one soon.”
He said the Corporation Street rank had not been officially closed, although it was presumed that, once building work had started on the corner of Ringway, ranking would become impossible.
However, he said work was on-going to get a new night rank in Lune Street up and running.
It will cater for up to six taxis at any one time between 11am and 8am but there are no plans for any more night ranks.
And moves are also being made to find more daytime ranking space after proposals for a Charnley Street rank were rebuffed by county council chiefs. Mr Thorpe said: “There’s still an issue of daytime ranks between the city centre and the train station.
“There are no plans for any more night-time ranks at the moment.
“I’m fairly happy with the rank provision for the evening economy but we would still like another daytime rank between the city centre and the train station because the nearest one is Lancaster Road.
“We’re disappointed that the county council would not support the council and trades’ wishes for a taxi rank in Charnley Street which would act as a feeder rank for the railway station and a rank in its own right to serve shoppers using Fishergate.”
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