Taxi drivers in Fenland have been given an October 20 deadline to agree or disagree with a proposal by the district council that could see some fares rocket by up to 50 per cent. The Cabinet of Fenland District Council postponed a decision in September after the rises had been recommended by its licensing committee.
Members heard of late opposition by the trade to the proposed increases.
On October 11, the council sent out a letter to all licensed drivers explaining that Fenland ranked 289 out of 341 local authority areas, making it currently among the lowest in the country.
The letter claimed it was ‘inaccurate’ to say the proposed increases amounted to a rate per mile of £3.30, an increase of 50 per cent mile, and that Fenland tariff rate per mile would exceed almost all other councils in the country.
Instead, says the letter, the increased tariff would be mean:
1: 2 mile journey now £6.20 would rise to £7.50, a 20.9 per cent rise.
2: 5 mile journey, now £12.80. would rise to £17.40, a rise of 35.9 per cent
3: 20 mile journey, now £45.80 would rise to £74.90, a rise of 41.7 per cent
4: 30 mile journey, now £67.80 would rise to £99.99, a rise of 47.3 per cent
If the rise is approved, and the council offers a reminder this is a maximum charge “and not what you have to charge”, Fenland would rank 112th highest out of 338, rather than 289th, and 6th out of 9 neighbouring authorities.
“Having regard to the new information and potential inaccuracies upon which the objections were based, it was considered appropriate, before making a final decision, to ensure that the proposed changes would have the level of support that was previously indicated,” said the letter.
Or, it added, “if upon further reflection, an increase in tariff is not something that the trade wishes to be pursued at this time”.
Cllr Dave Patrick and a long standing unofficial spokesperson for the taxi trade, believes the council is not reflecting the true rates.
“Every district has a flag,” he said. “This is the start charge at the initial hiring.
“In Fenland it is £4.00 for the first mile. In Cambridge for the first 90 metres, it costs £3.65 and then the mileage rate kicks in.”
Cllr Patrick said: “Presently in Fenland once the flag distance of 1 mile has been reached the rate per mile is £2.20 which is charged in 1/11th increments at 20p.
“Fenland’s proposal increases the mile rate to £3.30 in 1/10th increments of 33p, with a flag of £4.20 as the starting point.
“So, while the first mile has only increased by 5% (the flag mile) every mile thereafter has increased by 50 per cent.”
He added: “In addition, when the vehicle happens to hit traffic or is stuck in a queue or waiting at traffic lights waiting time is also added to the fare.
“I cannot state enough that once you have travelled the first mile every mile thereafter has seen an increase of 50 per cent. Something Cllr Sam Hoy, as portfolio holder for licensing, fails to acknowledge.”
Cllr Gurninder Singh Gill of Whittlesey has commented on social media extensively about the proposed fares increase.
In one posted he wrote: “If they wanted to do it for political gain then they would have been looking to reduce the tariffs to make it cheaper for the general public to get taxis which would obviously favour them for elections.
“From a personal business point of view, I hope the fares don’t increase because it’s going to benefit me and my company a hell of a lot more by restricting levels of competition.”
He runs a growing private hire fleet, but also Hackney Carriages, out of Whittlesey and has recently run a recruitment drive at Tesco in Wisbech.
The debate took a bizarre twist last month when the Conservative controlled council decided – for the first time – that its Cabinet would eventually agree any increase.
Despite the council’s own website for years explaining that such decisions would only be made by all 43 councillors, council leader Chris Boden told his Cabinet that as of now only they would decide, as per the constitution he explained.
Last Wednesday a council spokesperson thanked me for “pointing out that the council’s webpage states that full council will set the tariff. It is correct that full council can take the decision, however, so can Cabinet and our webpage will be amended to reflect that”.
It may be minor, but it means, and for the first time, only Conservative councillors will set the fares, since no opposition councillors, of course, sit on Cabinet.
Last month Cabinet were set to approve the new rates but agreed, following a late outcry from the taxi industry, to postpone the decision.
Although an original consultation had fed into the July licensing committee when it had been proposed by Cllr Peter Murphy and seconded by Cllr Alex Miscandlon to recommend the revised rates.
Cllr Miscandlon said that “drivers do not have to charge what it says on the meter and quite a few of them don’t”.
He added that “some drivers prefer not to mess around with change, they like to deal with round figures and not technical meterage”, ignoring of course the licensing laws that the fare set by Fenland Council must be that shown on all licensed taxis.
And could lead to the unseemly spectacle of every passenger challenging in advance any fares and even approaching a line of taxis outside local shopping centres for their best quote!.
When it came to Cabinet last month the portfolio holder for licensing, Cllr Sam Hoy, felt disinclined to speculate on the reasons for the challenge to the proposed increases.
“I won’t want to say my full reasons for that, but I do think it is politically motivated but obviously I will be careful because we obviously do have a conduct process and I would not like to find myself falling foul of that,” she said.
“I don’t have any skin in the game,” she said. “I am not a taxi driver. I very rarely use taxis and the reason I very rarely use taxis is because if I ever need a taxi which tends to be occasionally in an evening they are not available”.
She felt an increased rate would incentivise more people to enter the trade.
“If a taxi driver right now wants to go and pick someone up and bring them to from Wisbech to March for a pound they can obviously do that.
“They wouldn’t because you know it’s too cheap, but they legally could do that.”
She said the fare set by the council “is just the maximum amount they are allowed to charge so I think that when people say Fenland District Council are increasing the fares that is obviously done to make a political point and to try and stir up ammunition.”
She said that opponents had made it seem “like Fenland District Council will put those taxi fares up and the taxi driver has no choice”.
Cllr Hoy said she felt the truth was that “there is some sort of anti-competitive nature in that if the increase is allowed, some drivers will want to increase it and if they want to remain competitive they will have to hold their prices down.
But she was worried on the impact for Fenland residents if they can’t get a taxi when they want one and what happens when current drivers leave the trade and retire.
Cllr Hoy said the late submission of comments had prompted her to recommend postponing a decision which was agreed.
She concluded her speech by insisting she was “on the drivers’ side” but also on the residents’ side “to a degree it doesn’t matter how much the taxi fee is, if there’s no taxis available taxis could be a pound or a million pounds but if there’s no taxis available you can’t get one.
“It’s really important to me that we get this right and I would like to defer this paper to the next cabinet meeting”.
Cllr Steve Tierney told Cabinet: “When I first saw councillor Patrick addressing this issue in local blogs and press and again the first thing I thought in my mind was he’s just completely outright lying to people, and I was quite disgusted by that
“But having given it some consideration, I thought perhaps I need to be a bit more charitable than that. Perhaps it’s possible that there are other things are going on here.
“It may be that he has simply misspoken again and again and again and again, or it may be that he simply doesn’t understand despite having been a district councillor for a long time and a taxi driver for a long time simply doesn’t understand how the system works.
“Perhaps it’s not lies but it certainly is misleading the public; it’s misleading in a number of key ways and I think it’s a shame because policy like this needs thoughtful decision making.
“I personally feel I’m on the side of both the taxi drivers who I want to be able to make a fair living and be able to feed their families and pay their bills and also the taxi users who need to be able to get around and some of whom are very vulnerable and I want to see them all get the best outcome
“I want the taxi drivers to be able to make a fair living but to be able to deliver the best price they can to people who need low prices in this difficult time.
“The trouble is when you tell people that the council sets the tariff the amount that is charged per mile that is not true.
“And it’s also clear from the letters from other people that they have mistook it
“I presume because councillor Patrick told them so; perhaps not but that’s what I presume, and we set the maximum fee. So what we do is we set the fee above which no taxi driver is allowed to charge but below that the taxi drivers set the fee.
“And I absolutely support them setting the most reasonable fee they can afford they should compete with one another that’s how healthy free markets work
“They should do their best to deliver a fantastic service that’s affordable to people who need it, and I think most of them do and I think it’s a terrible shame that some of them are allowing themselves to be led by this nonsense this deliberate misleading of them.
“And it’s a shame that some of the public are being scare mongered and being told that this absolute nonsense
“It is simply not true that we set the actual tariff that taxi drivers charge. We have no say in it.
“The taxi drivers set that, and I fully encourage them to set the best price that they can.
“That said I don’t mind the outcome for me if the taxi drivers all to say we don’t want any rise in the maximum tariff fine -don’t have it then.
“If it doesn’t encourage new drivers in if you can’t afford to pay your bills next year blame councillor Patrick; I’m absolutely okay with that.
“I would personally prefer if we didn’t have any say in the maximum tariff at all.
“I actually think in a free market they should set their maximum tariff and if it’s too expensive nobody use them they’ll be out of business because that’s how markets are supposed to work.”
“But I do find it disgusting when this level of misleading information is put out to so many people simply to score cheap political points it’s just awful and it’s the worst sort of local politics.”
