Terrell from the Falmouth Taxi Association has asked me to put this out to all:
Today you would’ve all received an email from Cornwall Licensing regarding a survey called “Let’s Talk Cornwall” about the removal of the taxi zones in Cornwall.
The reason that I am reaching out to all of you, is that we need to say no to removal of the zones in Cornwall. These surveys were used three years ago to remove another policy, that was detrimental to our industry.
The surveys were full of inaccuracies, inconsistencies and the numbers just didn’t add up. They were presented to the full council as evidence to remove this policy.
In my opinion the council were lied to and manipulated by the MLC ( Miscellaneous Licensing Committee), who appeared to have a bigger agenda and we can’t let this happen again.
It is up to all of us taxi drivers and companies across Cornwall to stand as a community to protect our industry from an irreversible disaster.
Why is it important to protect these zones?
Well, it will be the end of our communities in Cornwall and it will become one large free for all, leaving our most vulnerable in the rural areas stranded. The removal of these zones is also the only way that the Council can create a unified tariff.
This means that there will be one zone and one tariff for the whole of Cornwall.
Why is this dangerous?
Because we will have to increase the tariffs to the highest tariff currently in Cornwall, which means that we will out price ourselves to the market and become too expensive for most of our customers.
Taxi users / our customers, which we all know have decreased in the last few years, due to the cost of living crisis, a decrease in visitor numbers and other Council lead projects like late night buses and Beryl bikes, will be paying more and will slowly stop using us.
The tariffs are different in the different zones due to many factors and take population, number of users, costs and the area into account to make sure that drivers can make a decent wage.
This is also dangerous because Cornwall Council only a few months ago granted Uber an operators license for Cornwall.
If our tariffs were to go up Uber would swoop in and undercut us all and they don’t follow the same rules and procedures as we do.
In my opinion, Uber is a company notorious for lobbying councils, undercutting the local trade and destroying taxi industries through monopolising the taxi markets, to eventually increase their prices and rip off our communities. They also take 25% of any tariff and that 25% gets sent internationally, so not only out of our country but out of our county of Cornwall, benefiting no one in Cornwall.
You don’t have to trust me. You just have to look at other areas of the country where Uber have done this London, Bristol, Merseyside, Birmingham, Sheffield and closer to home Plymouth.
Those with dual plates, might think that this will save them a few quid, but looking at the bigger picture, you will loose far more in the future.
If we don’t stand together now and strongly reject the idea of one zone for the whole of Cornwall collectively, as a community, we may very well see our industry decimated by these actions.
Cornwall Council in the recent years pushed the last policy through by saying that our trade lacked harmony.
In the last few years, as you will all know, our trade has been far from harmonious.
We have seen the council pressure us into price cuts for school runs, taxi ranks overflowing, increases to the costs of our licences, late night buses and the feeling that no matter how much the trade asks to be heard our concerns fall on deaf ears and they do everything to make our survival impossible.
This is our opportunity to stand united together and say no to one zone for Cornwall, to protect our livelihoods, our communities, our businesses and our jobs.
We all should be allowed to decide our own futures.
Thank you for your time and be safe out there on the roads. Please urgently share this with any other drivers in your phones across Cornwall. Let us be heard!
Terrell Savage
Falmouth Taxi Association
