Taxi rule change delayed by 'global events'

A NEW rule making taxis in South Gloucestershire accessible to people in wheelchairs has been delayed because of “recent global events”, councillors have been told.

In a bid to make travelling easier for disabled people, South Gloucestershire Council decided in 2017 to encourage hackney carriage taxis to switch to wheelchair-accessible vehicles.

A deadline for all hackney carriages to be wheelchair- accessible was set for April 1 this year.

But taxi drivers have urged the council to delay the rollout of the new rule. The council is also considering a separate rule forcing all taxis to be electric by 2030, and electric wheelchairaccessible taxis are currently “prohibitively expensive”.

Drivers also said the pandemic meant a huge drop in trade, and the war in Ukraine had disrupted global supply chains, delaying the manufacturing and supply of new vehicles.

The council’s regulatory committee voted to delay the launch of the new rule in March, just over a week before it was due to come into force.

A report to the committee said: “This is not an attempt by hackney carriage vehicle licence holders and drivers to avoid the policy, and they understand why it is happening."

The report said that since 2016 the number of wheelchairaccessible taxis had risen by six, from 31 to 37.

But drivers have to wait a year or 18 months to be able to buy a new wheelchairaccessible taxi.

Severn Vale ward councillor Keith Burchell said: “This has been going on for a long time but unfortunately due to the events of the last three or four years, we have to do something now just to alleviate the situation, because the situation has changed since this was first recommended."

By Alex Seabrook, Local Democracy Reporting Service