CAB drivers who have been fined for illegal parking say they are being penalised because the council is doing nothing to fix the mess in the city’s taxi ranks.
Taxi drivers in Worcester have been fined by West Mercia Police for parking outside the city’s designated taxi ranks but the drivers have laid the blame on Worcester City Council for failing to stop private hire taxis from clogging up the city’s roads.
Taxi ranks in Foregate Street and St Swithin’s Street are regularly overflowing and cabs waiting outside the ranks for revellers leaving clubs and bars in the narrow New Street have led to fines from police.
READ MORE: Taxi drivers fined on Foregate Street
City taxi driver Mohammad Sajad told councillors that loopholes in the law which allowed taxis handed a licence from any council in the country to ply their trade in Worcester meant upwards of 250 taxis were descending on the city at most weekends.
Mr Sajad said this was forcing the city’s hackney cab drivers – who had been given taxi licences from Worcester City Council – to park outside of ranks to wait for passengers which meant they were running the risk of fines from police.
READ MORE: Worcester's 'struggling' taxi drivers request urgent fare increase
Cllr Simon Cronin said the council was letting down taxi drivers who were continually having to risk a fine from police because they were not being provided with somewhere to park.
“I actually made a request [at the last meeting committee meeting in June] that enforcement should actively be carried out to stop the misuse of the ranks which, at that time, was an ‘occasional problem’ but through the summer that enforcement hasn’t happened. We now have some very serious problems.
“The ranks in New Street are routinely blocked up with private vehicles and taxi drivers are being ticketed by the police because they are over-ranking onto double yellow lines,” he told the licensing and environmental health committee at a meeting in the Guildhall on September 27.
“Our taxi provision in this city is being hampered by misuse of the ranks.
“It is causing problems for our citizens who can’t find taxis and the taxis can’t stop anywhere near where they are expected to be because those places are blocked and they are afraid of getting tickets.”
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