Taxi Driver Online

Did we do this one? Probably but just in case we didn't, here it is again. If anyone knows whether Wyre Forest decided to do a U Turn will you please let us know?
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April 24, 2008 Thursday

Hope for taxi fleet u-turn

Kidderminster Shuttle

TAXI drivers facing orders to change to expensive wheelchair-freindly vehicles are hoping for a u-turn by Wyre Forest District Council in the wake of fresh Government guidance.

The council has decreed that all hackney carriages must be wheelchair accessible by 2013 but the Government is now calling on local authorities to take part in further consultation over the summer after claims that many disabled people cannot easily use the specially designed vehicles.

The European Conference of Ministers of Transport Taxi Group is also recommending mixed fleets of accessible taxis and Disability Action Wyre Forest is urging that up to 25 per cent of the district's hackney carriages be left as ordinary saloon cars.

A landmark court judgement that Milton Keynes District Council had acted "unreasonably" in forcing its hackney carriage licensees to run a 100 per cent wheelchair accessible fleet has added further fuel to the fire in the battle to allow mixed fleets.

Wyre Forest Taxi Association spokesman, Trevor Owen, said it was hoped that their alternative proposals for a mixed fleet would be considered by the licensing committee in June.

The association is calling for new licence holders to be forced to buy wheelchair accessible vehicles but for existing licence holders to be able to continue running saloon cars.

Mr Owen said this solution would ensure there was a mixed fleet and protect the livelihoods of existing hackney carriage licence holders, warning that if the council did not agree a u-turn, a number of taxi drivers who have to change their vehicles under the seven-year rule this summer would be forced out of business.

Council Leader, Conservative councillor, John Campion, however, insisted that the current 36 per cent of wheelchair accessible taxis operating in Wyre Forest was not good enough.

"I want to see free access for all and I make no apology that we are driving up the standards," he said.

Mark Lawley, of Disability Action Wyre Forest, said if all taxis were wheelchair accessible, certain people would find them difficult to use.

"A minimum of 75 per cent would give positive action to people who have rights under the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act and 2005 amendment of the Disability Discrimination Act," he added.

Independent Health Concern Leader, councillor Howard Martin, urged the council to defer introducing the new regulations until the outcome of the Government consultation is known later in the year.
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I'm quite sure that Milton Keynes magistrates are a sound bunch, but since when did JPs pass down landmark judgments?

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IDFIMH

So he's quite happy to see a condition that would force some out of business applied to others?

In reply to a copy of the taxi review letter I sent him

Seems like it.

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http://wingsoverscotland.com/ http://www.newsnetscotland.com/

I'm all right jack mentality.
Aberdeen have been doing this since 1994.
WAV still nowhere near 75%. 35 - 40% would be nearer the mark.
Thriving market in saloon plate rentals though.
Lots of PHCs too.
Also plenty of illegal plying from neighbouring authority hacks who don't need to get a WAV.

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http://wingsoverscotland.com/ http://www.newsnetscotland.com/

Look, get everyone to carry out a risk assessment on the WAV's they want you to buy and tell them if they try and force this through you won't be transporting wheelchairs at all.

WAV's are unfit for purpose.

I do wheelchairs every now and then but it's my choice - not there's.

The council already have my risk assessment and there is sod all they can do about it.

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All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.
George Orwell, "Animal Farm"