Northumberland Tories attacking County Hackney and Private Hire Drivers:

If you’re a regular taxi user in any of the peripheral to other Council area Towns in Northumberland, like Prudhoe, Blyth, Seaton Valley, Cramlington, Ponteland etc you may have a regular number you ring to take you shopping, to a health appointment or out socialising. Or you may use any of the cards left in your local supermarket, hospital or pub and be collected by Cabs that are licensed in neighbouring authorities while if you’re a Northumberland Hackney driver your left sitting unemployed in a Northumberland County Council rank.

This is the outcome of nine years of Tory austerity and the growth of call centres to change the face of public transport across the nation. You may believe the nation should be exposed to the free market economy but its you and your local cab driver who loses out in the longer term.

In Northumberland where cabs from places such as North Tyneside, City of Newcastle, Gateshead, Cumbria and Scotland sit in back lanes and wait for their call centre to pass them work, local drivers have an awful time and income is often driven down to the bone. Yet those who are in power at County Hall in Morpeth and manage the licensing of taxis and private hire vehicles have recently shown they don’t give a damn for the cabby who’s plying their trade and paying their taxes across the County, as under the cover of ‘Climate Emergency’ they have decided to force the taxi companies to modernise their fleets almost immediately and the cost of that proposed edict from the Tory led Council will be to force up costs to the public and drive most of the small operators out of business leaving the out of County operators with an open door to pick up passengers at will yet not have their cabs tested and checked in Northumberland.

The proposed amendments to the Northumberland County Council Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Licensing Policy is to make all vehicles compliant with Euro 6 emissions standards for passenger cars and Euro 5 for commercial vehicles such as mini buses and vehicles must be less than four years old. The Standards for electric vehicles will not change.

The current standards introduced in 2017 of Euro 5 for passenger cars and Euro 4 for commercial vehicles with an eight year change period, one of the shortest nationally, may sound old hat to environmentalists and Tory Councillors who will possibly still be running tractors that were built eons ago on their farms and holdings, is wholly policed by the County Council itself. Taxis are tested at the County Councils own garages four times per year! Small fortunes are transferred from the taxi industry into the coffers of the County Council which is effectively a stealth tax on the industry. Currently they are tested to a much more stringent standard than any family car to ensure that you and I for that matter as a passenger can travel in safety but having to change cabs every four years will have massive consequences for this industry.

In London, the nations prime cab area, with ‘black cabs’ pictured sending an image of settled soundness for the industry world wide, cabs have a lifespan of 15yrs, in areas where the internet cab is common you may be picked up in any age and standard of vehicle that are on many occasions under the radar business operated, but in Northumberland, county registered cabbies operate in full view but are being asked to fund change at a rate far too rapid for their industry while neighbouring Councils lag behind due to the pressure put on them by the industry itself.

The most galling thing cabbies have told me is that this week Northumberland County Council announced it was ‘Greenest in the UK’ with a 78.3% drop in emissions which proves that the current lifespan and vehicle testing system works a treat so why attempt to kill the livelihoods of many people and an industry that is an intrinsic part of the public transport system across the County when the largest self-praise coming from the Council is that of its plans to increase access to public transport further. HOW?

Notes:
https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/news/politics/council/northumberland-greenest-uk-according-new-carbon-emission-figures-627526?itm_source=parsely-api

***Many cab companies are running petitions at the moment to garner support from their service users regarding this savage change, please engage your local cab driver and sign their petition.