Taxi Driver Online

Norwich clubbers must fund taxi marshalling scheme from next year

Friday, 24 December, 2010

Night-time revellers will have to fund the taxi marshal scheme in Norwich city centre from next year because the money has run out.

The scheme started two years ago and marshals work at the rank in Tombland between 10pm and 3am on Friday and Saturday nights.

It costs around £20,000 per year to maintain and in the last two years has been funded by local businesses, the Safer Norwich Partnership, Norfolk Constabulary, Norwich City Council and, latterly, the Norfolk Nightsafe Partnership fund.

Funding for the marshals ends from the beginning of 2011 as the existing public revenue streams have been exhausted.

It means that clubbers will have to pay £1 per cab from next year, although participating venues in the city centre have agreed to reimburse revellers on presentation of a validated ticket.

Payment will be via a pay and display machine, and an application for its installation next to the existing rank in Tombland has now been submitted to the city council.

Julian Foster, chairman of the Central Norwich Citizens’ Forum, which is one of the partners behind the scheme, said: “The proposal from the partnership to levy a payment of £1 per cab from customers using the rank is a simple and fair solution.

“But it would be grossly unfair and unsafe to ask the marshals to collect the fee and hence the need for a machine at the head of the rank to perform this function."

“It is expected that many businesses in the area will offer refunds to their customers on presentation of receipts from the machine. The machine is therefore essential to enable the service to be continued.

“If the plans are approved, we hope to have the machine and scheme up and running by February. We can then consider putting other machines at places where there’s a need for them.”

He said about 1,250 people in Norwich used the taxi rank every weekend, with more than 130,000 people having used it so far.

“Reports of violent crime and anti-social behaviour in the city centre have fallen year on year since the introduction of the scheme particularly in the Tombland area,” he added.

Taxi marshals provide a secure radio link to the police and CCTV and can help hackney carriage drivers in dealing with intoxicated, violent and aggressive people.

The Tombland taxi marshals are provided by a partnership composed of the Norwich City Licensing Forum, the Central Norwich Citizens’ Forum, the Norwich City Centre Partnership, Norwich City Council and the Norfolk Constabulary.

Plans for the installation of a solar powered pay and display machine were submitted by Shapoor Naghshineh of RCP Parking on behalf of the partnership, and will be discussed by Norwich City Council’s planning committee at a date to be fixed.

Source; http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/news/nor ... r_1_761232

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Kind regards,

Brummie Cabbie.

Type a message, post your news,
Disagree with other members' views;
But please, do have some decorum,
When debating on the TDO Forum.

I can't see this working!

The public will find a way of not paying the squid.

_________________
Kind regards,

Brummie Cabbie.

Type a message, post your news,
Disagree with other members' views;
But please, do have some decorum,
When debating on the TDO Forum.

[quote="Brummie Cabbie"]I can't see this working!

The public will find a way of not paying the squid.[/quot

some dont even want to pay for the taxi!

Instead of the clubs pi**ing around with these tickets, why don't they just each pay a certain % towards the costs of the marshals.

The clubs cause all the aggro, so they should pay 100% of the costs.

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IDFIMH

Quite agree Sussex, if the clubs charge punters an extra £1.00 each regardless of if they are getting a cab home they would soon amass £20,000 over a short time.
The reason the rank idea wont work is a punter can take any cab from that rank by law so if they get in the back one without a ticket they save a pound.
The law needs changing so that you have to take the first cab before it could work

It would appear that the obvious has been missed here. Most people won't require a taxi until the end of the night so how are the clubs to reimburse anybody once they've left

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Note to self: Just because it pops into my head does NOT mean it should come out of my mouth!!

The next time that they use the club at a guess.

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Grandad,

So there's a good chance that they won't have to, considering, most people will have lost the ticket by the next weekend

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Note to self: Just because it pops into my head does NOT mean it should come out of my mouth!!

Quite probably.

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Grandad,

give em a reflective hologrammed badge with thier photo on it to wear round thier necks on a chain

oh no, thats us innit.............