Carlisle's Exclusive Taxi Rank

Since November 1994 Carlisle Council has implemented a policy of only allowing wheelchair accessible vehicles to apply for hire on the main public taxi rank, namely Court Square. The Court of Appeal deemed that policy illegal in 2002 in the case of Maud v Castle Point BC. However Carlisle council are still enforcing that policy knowing its illegality.

It became apparent to councillors that thirty-three public carriage vehicles were hardly enough to service a city the size of Carlisle and that the wholesale plying for hire at weekends by private hire vehicles bore testament to that fact. In order to give the public of Carlisle a better service, councillors were left with no option but to increase the number of hackney carriage vehicles allowed to ply for hire on the City's streets, however the dilemma for the council was how to implement change?

Unfortunately, so I'm told, along with many other reports, the reports appertaining to the Taxi delimitation exercise in 1994, were washed away in the Carlisle floods of 2005. But fortunately the 'minutes' of the committee meeting were salvaged.

Before making a decision on a change of policy, councils by law have to consult with those who might be affected by such change? In other words the Carlisle Taxi trade would have been consulted and their views placed before the committee for consideration. The local taxi trade were vehemently against any change of policy, if the council removed the limit on hackney carriage numbers it would mean increased competition and the removal of the scarcity value of their restricted license. The value of the restricted license at that particular time was 10 - 12 thousand pounds, in terms of today's value taking into account similar scarcity values in other restricted areas in 1994 it would equate to approximately 45 thousand pounds.

With their preferred policy options of removing restrictions on hackney carriage vehicles, the council then had to consult with those persons and organisations this policy change might affect? This meant consultation had to take place with the local hackney carriage trade.

In 1994 the Carlisle Taxi association was officiated by Mr. Wayne Casey acting as Secretary and Mr. George Earl advised me he was acting as Chairman, however Mr Casey has since indicated that Mr Earl was not Chairman in 1994. Negotiations ensued where the local Taxi association took the position that if change was to take place then it should be gradual change. The council's position was that they were not prepared to give the public a diet of what they saw as a public service. They believed that there was no public benefit derived by allowing a trickle of hackney carriage vehicles to be licensed year on year. Therefore as you can quite clearly see, there was a stalemate between the two parties on the opinion on policy? The local taxi trade wanted a gradual increase in numbers whereas the local council wanted instant removal of numbers? Somewhere in the middle lay the interests of the Carlisle public?