I'm not an expert on the geography of England, but some of these areas seem amazingly rural.
I know that mandatory WAV taxis in my area would spell the death knell for the trade in its current form - as a medium sized saloon taxi town we don't have a PH tier, and there's enough conflict and bitterness as it is, without the added burden of a two tier system, with all the division and hatred that that often entails.
And as I said recently in another thread, in several years in our medium sized town, I've never seen a wheelchair user get into a saloon car taxi, which says something since it seems that the majority either prefer to or must get out of the wheelchair when travelling.
I don't know much about Whitehall procedures either, but I thought that we would get a consultation document that discussed the issues, which would then be finalised, and a list of the LAs drawn up - my impression is that the cart has come before the horse here, and the whole thing looks more like a
fait accompli rather than the forerunner of a consultation.
And all we've had up till now is an 'informal discussion document' issued about half a dozen years ago - what about the exemption criteria mentioned in that, for example?
If the OFT report is due out within the next few days, then the timing of the DDA announcement seems more than co-incidental. Could the DDA statement could have been rushed out so that it could be included in the OFT report, or on the contrary, could it have been rushed out to ensure that it's not included in the OFT report.
After all, we might have hoped that the OFT would have at least mentioned the idea of a one-tier system, for example, but the DDA proposals would just perpetuate two tier systems where they exist, and create them where effective one tier sectors operate at present.
We shall see!
Dusty