Taxi drivers plan protest over community transport as council meets to consider fate of councillor’s lobbying roleTaxi drivers in the Fens plan a mass lobby of Cambridgeshire County Council to protest at what they claim is the unfair allocation of schools contracts to an expanding community transport scheme.
The protest – scheduled for December 11 -will mark the most visible protest yet by taxi drivers who have announced the setting up of a Fenland wide association to raise their concerns about the Fenland Association for Community Transport (FACT).
But Jo Philpott, the manager of FACT which controls a fleet of mini buses in Fenland and has recently spread into Huntingdonshire, has hit back, lodging a protest over the actions of Wisbech district councillor Dave Patrick.
On Thursday her complaint against Mr Patrick- that he has used his councillor status unfairly to lobby charitable funders on behalf of taxi firms- will go before a conduct committee of Fenland Council.
Mrs Philpott told the council’s monitoring team that Mr Patrick “has recently made slanderous allegations against myself through my role as manager of FACT. He has approached funders of FACT from the last three years and has sent them a 15 page plus dossier of subjective information regarding the operating of FACT.”
She said allegations made against her in the document “are simply untrue. This is potentially very damaging to my own credibility also FACT’s credibility as well as people in our community whom we serve. I feel that by using his ‘councillor’ label he is both abusing his position within the council as this is only to gain maximum effect from the organisations he has targeted.”
Mrs Philpott accused Mr Patrick of running a “vendetta” on behalf of taxi drivers and she wants the council to take action against him.
The conduct committee will meet on Thursday to consider the complaint but meanwhile Mr Patrick insists he was elected following other issues with taxi drivers and he had never hidden from his job.
He added: “I have taken up dozens of other causes both in my role as a town and district councillor – every time it is as a councillor and I see no difference on this occasion. Council colleagues always refer to me as ‘taxi Dave’ which may or may not be a compliment but there it is.”
In his letter to charities, which has been re printed by Fenland Council together with the ‘dossier’, he accuses the FACT management board of being “full of appointed councillors, transport portfolio holders and transport officers from both the district and county council”.
Mr Patrick said his action in contacting charities was to express concern over FACT’s “ruthless and indiscriminate fund raising activities” which had led to the association expanding fast and having a serious affect on the livelihoods of many taxi drivers.
Taxi drivers’ spokesman Dave Humphreys addressed a meeting in Wisbech last week of drivers from both Wisbech and March and at which the new association was agreed.
He claimed that by the end of this year FACT would have “potentially over £300,000 in commercial contracts which equates to £100 per week from nearly 60 drivers’ livelihoods. That’s half the taxi and private hire industry in the Fenland area.”
Alan Pain, corporate director and monitoring officer of Fenland Council, said the complaint by Mrs Philpott that Mr Patrick had breached the councillors’ code of conduct would be considered on Thursday.
“Councillor Patrick has been offered the opportunity to provide an initial written response to the complaint,” he said.
“The committee is being asked to consider the complaint and determine if it discloses a likely breach of the member code of conduct.”
Steve Barclay, MP for NE Cambs, chaired a meeting earlier this year of taxi drivers and FACT officials following which Fenland Council agreed an audit of the community transport provider.
That report, published in August, exonerated FACT of any wrong doing but Mr Humphreys said taxi drivers continued to challenge the findings.
http://www.cambstimes.co.uk/news/taxi_d ... _1_2963761
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