Taxi Driver Online

Cash obstacle to taxi ban bid
DUDLEY Council hopes to ban late night traffic from Stourbridge High Street by December 7 - if it can convince pub chains to stump up part of the cash in time.

The scheme to stop private hire taxis and motorists clogging up the town centre on busy weekend nights was given the thumbs-up last month.

But now the council is racing against time to come up with around £15,000 to get the initiative up and running in time for Christmas.

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Stourbridge town centre manager Matt Caddick said the majority of the cash was needed to cover the costs of taxi marshalls, to direct pubgoers to private hire cabs in Lower High Street.

He said a Home Office grant of up to £6,000 could be in the offing plus cash from the Community Safety Partnership's Joint Action Group.

But the six-month trial scheme is dependent on the pub chains behind Que Pasa, Chicago Rock Cafe and Lloyds No 1 coughing up around £4,500 between them.

Chairman of Stourbridge's Pubwatch Nathan Darby, manager of Que Pasa, said: "The fact that no-one knows where the money's coming from is a bit worrying."

Andy Stobbs, manager at Chicago Rock Cafe, said: "£4,500 is a lot of money and the chance of any of us getting that kind of cash is slim in that amount of time if at all."

Matt Caddick, however, said: "I think it would be responsible of the licensed venues that are creating the problem to contribute to the project to make the town's night time economy safer.

"We're working flat out to secure the funding. We thought it would be good to get it in place for the Christmas rush as we have serious public safety concerns, but if we can't get the funding it won't start before Christmas."

Under the scheme, private hire cars and members of the public will be banned from driving down Stourbridge High Street between midnight and 4am on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights as well as Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve.

Only hackney carriages and emergency vehicles will be allowed in.

Cars already parked will be allowed to drive out, but anyone flouting the ban will be issued with fixed penalty tickets.

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

I hope they get f*** all.

WTF can't PH go down the poxy road?

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IDFIMH

I wasnt sure if this had been posted before, I cant remember it.

Was kind of surprised about this quote;


Stourbridge town centre manager Matt Caddick said the majority of the cash was needed to cover the costs of taxi marshalls, to direct pubgoers to private hire cabs in Lower High Street.


This ones kind of puzzling too;

"I think it would be responsible of the licensed venues that are creating the problem to contribute to the project to make the town's night time economy safer.

CC

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

Typical, they want all the PH to bring them in then let the hacs take them home. Wonder if they have de-limitaion, because if they dont then either they will have soon, or they'll put busses on like we're fighting at the moment.