Taxi Driver Online

Nothing particularly new here, except the informal term 'exhaust rules', which of course is all about emissions standards, or whatever the more formal wording should be.

But sounds like it's mostly saloons here, and the diesels that won't make the spec will be 2014 or older, and this will happen some time in the future, so doesn't sound the most onerous standard around.

Funny thing, though, is that the article doesn't actually state when the Euro 6 standard will become applicable

I like the sound of an 'audit' of taxi rank provision, though, but of course like consultations and the like, it may be just more box ticking and paper shuffling rather anything more substantive


Fears BCP taxi drivers could leave trade over exhaust rules

https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/ ... ust-rules/


Image: Bournemouth Echo

ALMOST a third of licensed taxis in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole area are unlikely to comply with European exhaust emission standards.

BCP councillors have turned down a plea from the trade association to relax the council’s rules – although a review is to be requested for the new council to look at after the May elections.

David Lane from the BCP taxi and private hire association told councillors at a meeting on Thursday that unless the requirement to meet the standards were relaxed he feared it could result in many drivers being forced to leave the trade because they would not be able to afford to buy newer vehicles.

The licensing committee meeting heard that 304 of the 938 BCP Council-registered fleet are thought to currently not comply with the Euro 6 emissions standard, mainly because they are older than when the exhaust levels were introduced.

The Euro 6 standard was put in place as part of the global challenge to improve air quality – it sets the levels of exhaust emissions for new cars registered from September 2015 with different standards for petrol and diesel vehicles.

Most of the committee members were against relaxing the need for licensed vehicles to comply with the standard – saying it would undermine BCP’s commitment to climate change.

Committee vice chair Cllr Toby Johnson said: “It would be a detrimental step to move it back any further. It would be a retrograde step for a council trying to be at the forefront of the climate change agenda.”

Others said they would like to see the current age restrictions on vehicles changed, replacing it with a mileage limit, and more done to encourage wheelchair accessible taxis, only two having been registered in the past year.

Cllr David Kelsey said he would like to see many of the hackney carriage and private hire policies reviewed given that most of the rules had been in place since before BCP Council came into being.

Committee chair Cllr Judy Butt agreed to call for that review with the committee voting to keep existing policies in place for now.

She is also to ask the council’s highways team to review the adequacy of taxi stand provision across the area after an informal audit found some possible shortcomings and places where new ranks might be provided.

Cllr David Brown asked for that review to also look at taking action against cars, other than taxis, parking in areas allocated as taxi stands or ranks.

He said the problem had been highlighted around the Dolphin Centre at Poole where members of the public had used taxi areas to park so they could go shopping – depriving the taxi drivers of the spaces allocated to them.

He said, on occasions, it had let to altercations with enforcement action needed by parking wardens to protect the spaces for their proper use.

A third of their fleet is over 8 years old.

For a place that is quite well off and has loads of tourists, IMO that's a pi** poor effort.

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IDFIMH

Its the colour of there vehicles thats needs to change . Horrible faded yellow.

They actually look worse in real life.

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IDFIMH