Taxi Driver Online

Licence change to tackle lack of wheelchair-accessible Harrogate taxis

https://planetradio.co.uk/greatest-hits ... ble-taxis/

The proposed change has been met with a mixed response...

Plans to tackle a decline in disabled-friendly travel by introducing an unlimited number of taxi licences have been met with a mixed reaction from Harrogate cabbies and campaigners.

Harrogate Borough Council’s licensing committee will next Thursday be asked to remove a limit on licences and make all new plates available to wheelchair accessible vehicles only after complaints that disabled people have been “cut off from society” because of a lack of travel options.

The move has been welcomed by campaigners who hope it will put an end to “the inequality that the current system imposes,” while cabbies have warned unlimited licences would lead to “deregulation” in the taxi trade.

Jackie Snape, chief executive of Disability Action Yorkshire, said the charity has long campaigned for a solution to the problem which has caused “social isolation and frustration” for disabled people.

She said: “Whilst in recent years many of our cities and towns have increased their numbers of Wheelchair Accessible Vehicles (WAVs), the exact opposite has been occurring across the Harrogate district.

“This is despite an increasing demand, which sadly has led to a real problem for local disabled people.

“Disabled people go to work, have medical appointments and go shopping just the same as non-disabled people, but with the difference being that many are reliant on others for their transport.

“The impact of not being able to get a taxi on the same basis as a non-disabled person should not be under-estimated.”

Meanwhile, Richard Fieldman, who runs A1 Cars of Ripon and Harrogate, said going through with the proposal would be a “big mistake” as more licences would mean the supply of taxis would outstrip demand.

He said: “I’m rather surprised they want to introduce an unlimited number of licences – it will have a massive impact on the trade because it will mean every man and his dog can get one.

“This isn’t about throwing a load of plates out there, this is about what is fair to the existing trade which has planned a lot of money and time into this.”

Harrogate Borough Council has restricted the number of taxi licences to 148 for around 30 years which in effect has meant the only way to acquire a licence is to buy an existing vehicle from someone.

In September last year, the licensing committee agreed to double the number of licences designated for wheelchair-accessible taxis from 11 to 23 after a study concluded disabled people were suffering from a “great deal of anxiety” over worries they could not get around.

However, the council has since run into difficulties over creating a “fair and lawful” system to distribute just 12 additional licences.

Dean Richardson, head of safer communities at the council, said in a report to Thursday’s meeting: “It became apparent to officers that it would not be straightforward to design a fair allocation system which would not be susceptible to legal challenge by disappointed applicants.”

He added: “In the Harrogate district, wheelchair users have been facing increasing difficulty obtaining wheelchair-accessible licensed vehicles’ services.

“WAVs are vital in allowing users to access essential services and for them to live their lives as anyone else would.”

The recommendation to committee members next Thursday is to remove the limit on licences with all future licences to be designated as WAV plates.

If approved, the changes would be reviewed within five years.

I think that in Harrogate they could end with WAV's that never (or rarely) carry Wheelchairs.

Well in a City with 100% WAV Hackney Fleet, guess what.

People in wheelchairs can't get a Taxi.

The LA can, and to a certain extent do, enforce at a Rank. But with maybe 3 exceptions, Drivers do not take bookings to pick up from elsewhere, this in a (slightly shrunken due to given ups during Covid) fleet of 310 Cabs. About 20% of Drivers have a medical exemption and don't deal with Wheelchairs anyway.

The biggest Operator of a mixed fleet have a standard reply to an enquiry for an advanced booking for a wheelchair passenger "Call on the day and we will see if we have a Driver". Standard reply when you ask on the day - "about four hours".

I am not claiming to have the answer to this, I am one of the Three that do take bookings by the way, but maybe things are being done the wrong way round.

LA's take the big stick to a Driver that refuses a wheelchair on the Rank (quite rightly) and all that happens is Drivers see the Wheelchair and Occupant coming, and pull off empty. There is no big stick to do anything with regarding refusal to take a booking, so bookings aren't taken.

So how about devising a system to produce a Carrot instead of a Stick.

Charge all Drivers a little more for their Hackney Carriage Driver Licence (HCDL). Using information from Disabled Transport Access Groups (Believe me there will be at least 1 in your Manor) give a Grant to Taxi Drivers who do deal with Wheelchairs and do take bookings for them. Maybe the Grant could exactly match the cost of a 3 year HCDL and maybe it could be given every 3 years, perhaps as the Driver renews. Seems to me that the Ring Fence principle is complied with and Disabled people would have access to the Taxi's they need.

A couple of side effects I would be prepared to bet on.

1. There would be more miracle cures of the permanently exempt drivers than cures at Lourdes.

2. Drivers would fall over themselves trying to take wheelchair bookings.

Good luck to the disabled in Harrogate, don't hold your breath that everything will be sorted by a slack handful of WAV Hackney's, because nothing will change.

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Chris The Fish

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdlyi5mc ... re=related

Excellent idea but I can't see any council adopting it another one would be for drivers to get wheelchair "points" every time you do a wheelchair job you take a pic and send it into the council with your HC number and the council gives you money off your plate renewal based on the number of "points" you have earned. I doubt any council would adopt that one either

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

Shock horror.

As for the availability issue, the more red smarties in a pack the more chance you have of getting one.

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IDFIMH

Fact: Less than 8% of British people with a disability are wheelchair users.

Dundee had a WAV grant scheme once upon a time, but the grants were four figure sums, and I'm guessing that at today's prices the sums involved would be a couple of grand a year at least.

But still there were very few WAVs, and eventually they dwindled away to zero, or almost zero, which was one reason the council did as Harrogate is proposing now.

So although your idea seems fine in principle, I suspect the sums involved would need to be greater than those you suggest.

On the other hand, when Dundee offered the grants the only realistic WAVs were the LTI and Metrocab, so perhaps that's why they needed such an incentive, so maybe the incentive required in Harrogate today wouldn't need to be quite as big.

I feel the need to clarify what I posted before.

Plymouth is 100% WAV.

My "idea" is meant for consideration in 100% WAV areas. It has not a Ghost of a Chance in mixed Fleet places, like potentially Harrogate.

I realise it won't be considered by the powers that be and even if it is, it won't be adopted.

Crazy that a PH Operator can set up a Transport Service for wheelchair users and charge significantly more than the Hackney Tariff yet still do well in a place like Plymouth.

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Chris The Fish

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdlyi5mc ... re=related

I wish! Our firm is a 100% Hackney fleet. Most of our work is for NHS patient transport services and nursing homes, I probably average three wheelchair passengers a day with six or seven not being unusual.

Gotcha. In which case the size of the financial incentive maybe isn't quite what was required in Dundee for saloon car owners to run an LTI or Metrocab.

And while your scheme sounds plausible to people in the trade, suspect those outside wouldn't be able to reconcile a mandatory 100% WAV fleet with having to provide a further incentive to actually take wheelchairs, which indeed is maybe why you know that the powers that be wouldn't consider it.

But I don't see how your idea (in principle at least) couldn't apply in areas with either all saloon-plates or mixed fleet areas like that proposed in Harrogate.

I recall writing something about a similar scheme (it might have been a letter in the local press) in our 100% saloon plate area, at a time when there was some debate about the need for WAVs locally.

Anyway, Dundee eventually scrapped the inadequacy of the carrot and used a big stick for new HC plates, which had to be WAV. The saloons were retained because of the now widespread argument that an all-WAV fleet would discriminate against the less able-bodied who find it easier to access saloons.

The WAV thing was a bit of an issue here in St Andrews for a while, although must be pushing twenty years ago now, and we're still all saloons, and I'm not really sure if it's much of an issue now.

But maybe that's because there are a lot more WAVs available here now - when I say we're all saloons, what I mean of course is that anyone can run a saloon HC if they want, but many choose to run 8-seaters, many of which I'm sure can take wheelchairs, so in effect there's maybe adequate WAV provision without it actually being mandatory for anyone

Harrogate council removes limit on wheelchair taxi licences despite 'deregulation' concerns

https://www.harrogateadvertiser.co.uk/n ... ns-3268248

A limit on the number of wheelchair accessible taxi licences in Harrogate has been removed despite concerns from cabbies that it will have a "devastating" impact on trade.

Harrogate Borough Council's licensing committee yesterday agreed to the move which aims to support disabled people in the district who campaigners say have been “cut off from society” and left suffering with "social isolation and frustration" because of a lack of travel options.

But some taxi drivers are against an unlimited number of licences and urged the committee to reconsider sticking to a previous plan to introduce 12 extra plates or risk "deregulating" the trade.

Speaking at a meeting yesterday, Richard Fieldman, who runs A1 Cars of Ripon and Harrogate, said: "When there are only 10 applicants for the proposed 12 wheelchair accessible plates, why are you considering a proposal to unlimit the number of them?

"This would not only be devastating to the trade but also to the council and its road traffic problems as there is not enough rank space to accommodate this."

Kevin O'Boyle, owner of Central Taxis and the longest holder of a taxi license in the district, also said in a letter to councillors before the meeting that the move risked Harrogate "losing control" of how many taxis are allowed on the roads.

"If you decide to deregulate, you, the council, will lose control and will be letting the genie out of the bottle. A genie I fear that once out, will be impossible to put back," he said.

In September last year, the licensing committee agreed to double the number of wheelchair accessible taxi licences from 11 to 23 after a council-run study concluded disabled people were suffering from a “great deal of anxiety” over worries they could not get around.

However, the authority says has since run into difficulties over creating a "fair and lawful" system to distribute just the 12 additional licences, and it believes it could be left vulnerable to legal challenges from disappointed applicants.

Currently there are 22 wheelchair accessible taxis operating in the district - a figure which has declined over recent years. This decline is something the council believes is partly down to the costs of purchasing a wheelchair accessible taxi - and it these costs that it says will "self-regulate" the number of vehicles on the roads

Councillor Victoria Oldham, chair of the licensing committee, also told yesterday's meeting that the council was not expecting a "surge" in licence applications and that it had not been made aware of any rank space issues.

She said: "The purpose of these proposals is to overcome the provision for customers who require wheelchair accessible vehicles. We know from the work that officers have done that the current provision by the trade is insufficient and does not meet the need.

"Based upon the expression of interests received in January 2021, there is no indication at this stage that there will be a surge in applicants.

"What the proposals will facilitate is the market meeting the existing demand. Numbers will also be naturally limited by the cost in purchasing and upkeeping a wheelchair accessible vehicle."

The licensing committee voted in favour of the proposals with two amendments to conditions which mean a review will be carried out in a year rather than five, as well as a requirement for drivers to complete a disability training course within one month of being approved rather than six.

So no problem with 'unlimiting' them if they wouldn't all be taken up anyway?