Derby City Council has taken the decision to delay its Taxi Strategy report, which was due to be heard by Licensing Committee on Wednesday 24th July.
The ambitious strategy focuses on modernising Derby’s taxi and private hire fleet; making them safer, more environmentally friendly, and enhancing customer service and experience, as well as exploring ways to tackle out of town taxis.
The draft Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle Strategy (TPH) 2020 will now go to Committee at a later date, giving officers additional time to accurately determine the feasibility of some of the +500 responses heard during the three month consultation.
Richard Antcliff, Director for Public Protection and Streetpride said:
The TPH strategy offers a long-term solution to Derby’s ageing taxis and high emissions. It’s been encouraging to see so many people understand that and take the time to respond constructively to the consultation. We did commit to bring the revised strategy back to Licensing Committee in July, however there were a number of valid points and suggestions raised that we’d like the time to explore further to determine if they’d work for Derby, while keeping the overarching goals of the strategy. (Safer / cleaner / modern / focussed). Ultimately any changes made now are going to bring about much needed change for the trade and the public alike, so we need to get this spot on.
A number of suggestions, for example retro-fitting vehicles, were put forward during the consultation, and at several of the six workshops that ran during this period.
Officers are now considering consultation results to determine if there are areas of compromise, before bringing a revised strategy back to Licensing Committee.
Mr Antcliff continued:
We’ve said from day one that this needed to be a collaborative process, and while we’re never going to please everyone, we hope we can get the balance right. Our end goal is to keep the taxi trade alive; to allow drivers to remain operating on a fully commercial basis, and offer customers an excellent and safe experience, at the same time as tackling air quality. And to do that, we have to be bold with our plans.