Taxi Driver Online

Maidstone taxi firm struggling to cope as COVID pandemic leads to driver shortage

https://www.kentlive.news/news/maidston ... pe-5715770

Apollo Taxis say this is a problem across the county, but particularly in Maidstone


Image: KentLive

A Maidstone taxi firm says it is having to turn away "at least 50 per cent" of all enquiries due to a shortage of pay for hire drivers.

Apollo Taxis, which also provides services in Medway and Ashford, is losing custom and income due to the lack of drivers.

With COVID restrictions now eased and nightclubs back open, this is especially tough for the firm as revellers faced long waiting times for cabs to and from venues during the first weekend of restriction-free clubbing.

Tom Veitch, director at Apollo, was concerned about the issues this could cause for the future.

"A lot of drivers left the industry at the start of the pandemic to find other work or returned to families abroad," he said.

"However now people are not returning or are stuck in ‘red list’ countries. The work is now greater than pre-pandemic but cannot be fulfilled."

Having spoken to other taxi companies in Kent, Veitch said this was an issue across the board, but particularly in Maidstone.

Veitch had foreseen the problem occurring back in February and March as the licensing authorities had shut down and were not taking on new drivers.

"I wrote to local MPs explaining that this would be an issue and would have an effect on all sorts of other industries if people could not move around," he explained.

"That might be the night time economy not being able to get people to or from their venues, or older people not being able to get out, or people can't get to the train stations.

"We are turning away at least 50 per cent of all enquiries as we simply have not got the capacity to take on the work.

"It is obvious it's becoming increasingly frustrating for the local community."

The issue of people having fewer cabs to pick from when coming out of a nightclub was also a problem that Tom saw.

"It means people cannot get home, this leads to people jumping in their cars and drink driving, and it means more people in the town centre causing policing to be an issue," he said.

"Vulnerable people may be forced to walk home. It has always been difficult to get a cab on a Saturday night but people are even struggling to pre-book now."

With travel restrictions now also beginning to loosen now that COVID cases are on the decline, there is a small hope that this problem can be solved.

So his firm has potentially more bookings than pre-Covid, but doesn't have the drivers to cover them? Are many firms covering more jobs than pre-pandemic? Certainly not what Addison Lee were saying in London

But another piece that seems to come to quite an abrupt end, as if there's more of the article but it's just not on the webpage.

Oh, how my heart bleeds for him.

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Former taxi driver

Strange that I haven't heard one local driver, not read or seen any non local drivers complain about this problem.

In fact I've suspect existing drivers are dancing in the streets about it.

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IDFIMH

for years councils and firms have pushed policies of oversupply to keep prices and complaints down and as many trades are finding out low wages and high covid risk drives drivers away not bring them in

the sudden dearth of work during the first lockdown and the very slow recovery after has meant people have now looked for and found more secure and reliable work added to which many non Brits decided to leave as well as a few deaths or serious long term effects from Covid also making inroads into the work force

Firms will now be seeking a few thousand students from the Indian sub continent to bump up the numbers

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