No Going Back: De-zoning will permanently cut rural taxi services. Once lost, they won’t return!
Once Rural Taxi Services Are Gone, They’re Gone for Good
If Cornwall Council pushes ahead with de-zoning, there will be no going back.
Once drivers abandon rural areas for busier towns, the services that rural residents rely on will be lost — permanently.
It won’t be possible to simply “undo” the damage later.
Recruiting drivers back to sparsely populated villages after they’ve been forced out will be nearly impossible.
De-zoning rural Cornwall is a one-way ticket to isolation — and the Council knows it!
🚫 National Guidance Wasn’t Written for Cornwall’s Reality 🚫
Cornwall Council may point to national guidance recommending the abolition of taxi zones.
But let’s be absolutely clear: that guidance (as usual) was written for major cities — not for rural Cornwall.
The national advice assumes:
- High taxi densities (50+ taxis constantly available)
• Short, urban travel distances
• Frequent, reliable public transport alternatives
• Dense, overlapping coverage areas
Cornwall is the exact opposite:
- Rural villages often have access to just one — or no — taxis at all
• Long, costly travel distances between communities
• Public transport is extremely limited — or doesn’t exist
• Sparse population outside a few urban centres
➡️ In Cornwall, de-zoning won’t “boost supply and choice” — it will wipe out rural taxi services altogether as with no controlling boundaries, drivers will inevitably migrate toward the busier towns such as Truro, Falmouth and Bodmin, chasing sustainable work.
➡️ The argument about “passenger confusion” is meaningless in places where there’s no choice anyway — many rural residents depend on a tiny handful of taxis, if any.
➡️ The supposed “cost savings” for the council would come at the direct expense of rural lives — and most of the savings would likely be swallowed up by the costs of restructuring anyway. A false economy with devastating consequences. Change for the sake of change.
🚨 The Taxi Trade Has Been Warning Cornwall Council — But They Refuse to Listen 🚨
For years, Cornwall’s taxi operators — the people who actually deliver rural transport day in, day out — have been warning the Council about the real-world consequences of scrapping taxi zones.
The trade knows what’s coming:
- Drivers migrating to the busiest towns
- Rural villages losing their only remaining taxis
- Vulnerable residents isolated and stranded
But Cornwall Council keeps ignoring the people who know best — clinging to city-based theories and “one-size-fits-all” national guidance that has no place in rural Cornwall.
The taxi trade isn’t crying wolf — we’re flashing a red warning light.
We’ve been shouting it from the rooftops for years — but Cornwall Council refuses to listen.
If they ignore the warnings again, it’s rural Cornwall’s residents who will keep paying the price — abandoned, isolated, and forgotten.
Why does the Council insist on turning its back on the very communities it’s meant to serve?
🔴 The Bottom Line:
National guidance wasn’t written for Cornwall’s villages.
It was written for cities.
Rural Cornwall needs real-world solutions — not cut-and-paste mistakes.
De-zoning rural Cornwall isn’t “progress” — it’s regress.
It’s reckless, short-sighted, and disastrous — and we already know it, because we lived through the damage after 1997.
Repeating a proven failure is not leadership.
It’s negligence — or worse, a complete dereliction of duty.