Taxi drivers ‘will struggle’ as council denies fare increase request Sheffield taxi drivers ‘are going to struggle’ after the council’s licensing committee denied them permission to increase their fares.
Members of the Sheffield Taxi Trade Association were told that money is tight for everyone at the moment, and drivers would have to absorb increasing running costs as best they can.
The STTA had requested to increase Sheffield taxi fares by ten per cent to meet rising fuel, insurance and other running costs.
Although it is not a legal requirement that the council must fix taxi fares, it has long been the practice in Sheffield for it to do so. The last increase Sheffield Council approved was a rise of more than four per cent in October 2011.
At the licensing committee meeting on Tuesday morning, chairman Coun John Robson said: “There’s a significant proportion, if not the majority, of the citizens of our city who are suffering economically at the moment.
“They have lost jobs and been threatened with redundancy. People have had their salaries frozen for the last two or three years with no prospect of an increase.
“In short, money is tight for everybody. We recognise and have a degree of sympathy that your costs have increased but since you put in your application at the back end of last year, the cost of fuel has started to decrease somewhat. There’s a feeling among members that the trade needs to absorb cost increases as best they can.”
After the meeting, Hafeas Rehman, chairman of the STTA, said he had taken ‘a lot of flack’ from drivers for not requesting an increase last year and he had hoped this year’s request would be granted.
“The drivers will be very, very disappointed I think, and some will be very angry,” he said.
“We didn’t apply for an increase last year because of the fact that everybody is losing jobs and so on. So we gave it a rest last year. The drivers are going to struggle now.
“I think what the council said is right but as with all businesses, there are increases in costs. We recognise that if fares go up too high we may lose customers, but we could have done with a slight increase to meet the other increases in costs. We’re tied down, with Sheffield City Council making the decision on our behalf.”
Sheffield taxi fares are the 13th most expensive in the north out of 81 authorities, ahead of Doncaster (56th), Rotherham (61st), and Barnsley (62nd).
source:
http://postcodegazette.com/
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