Newquay Taxi Forum

The next unmet demand survey for Restormel, Carrick & Penwith is about to get underway. The possible good news is that it is the same company as last time undertaking it, so it will hopefully reflect a similar status quo to last time.

One difference this time is that it will be conducted over a full year, running from early January to late November (?) when the findings will be delivered to licensing & the trade.

The cost this time will see an extra £130 per Restormel hackney plate on renewal as from April 6th 2018, the price varies very slightly between zones, but not by much. There is some supporting documentation to go with this post for you to read, including a driver questionnaire and public attitude questionnaire which were discussed at the inception meeting on Wednesday, and some of the questions were highlighted for alteration, so these are not the final draft.

There is also the Introduction document, a monthly calendar, proportionate rank study document, and a usage study to look at as well…

Mark Formosa and I attended this meeting with Chris Matta, Julie Flower, 2 representatives from highways, Jez Bayes from ‘Public Health’ (the source of this issue) and Sgt Honeywill from Newquay Police. Please first take a moment to read the report from Jez Bayes on this matter here. We put across the impracticalities of the suggestions within the report, and strongly pointed out that at no time was there any mention within the report of our safety, and also pointed out that it really comes down to lack of Police presence. However, the Police are short staffed and that does not appear to be changing in the near future, but the conclusion regarding the rank at Fore Street is to proceed to consultation with a view to ‘extending’ the current rank toward the Alma Place junction by 25-30 metres, which could translate into an additional 5-6 bays. It was also discussed as to the possibility of ‘Town Marshalls’, we’ll have to wait and see, but for now and all being well, Fore Street rank will remain in place?! Also for those wanting more information on the ‘ARID’ system click here

It’s a must these days. One thing is guaranteed in the event of an accident – PEOPLE WILL LIE! I have had CCTV in my cabs for several years now and in that time there have been at least three incidents where it proved to be priceless and was the difference between losing my NCB or sticking it to the smart arse that smashed in to me.

There are at least 3 essential reasons to have it:

1. Evidence in case of accident or vandalism
2. Evidence of any incident inside the cab with customers
3. Evidence against any biased persecution

Here is a link to the CCTV unit I swear by, and it is only £33.99

This unit records forward & inward with audio. There is no need to spend huge sums on a unit that is only half as good, and it’s easy to fit. This unit will come from Hong Kong or something, but at least you won’t have to pay additional markups just for buying it in this country. I use 32GB memory cards which are enough to record a whole shift, and have a spare card to swap out if I need to capture any footage to computer. I also recommend that you wire it to a permanent power source so that it is on all the time, then nothing gets missed!

Don’t forget window stickers though!

On any busy night in Newquay town centre, who manages the town?

I don’t mean who decides what roads are open or closed, or what time licensees can open until. On an average busy Saturday night, how many people are there giving their patronage to our town centre – 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 or more? I don’t know the exact figure but I am sure it is in the thousands.

So when I say who manages the town, what I mean is, who actually looks after the ‘human traffic’ who come to enjoy and spend money in our town centre; who manages and looks after the town?

Now it isn’t the Police, they don’t have the numbers to do it. They have a minimal number of officers to deal with the relatively minor offences that take place within the town, nothing too serious happens that often. It isn’t the council officers, they generally do not work beyond office hours, or if they do come out, it is generally the senior officer who is either checking badges, or checking on licensed premises.

So who manages the town?

The bouncers and the taxis? Well who else is there?

I think it is very fair to say that although the bouncers manage the people when they are in the clubs and pubs, on the whole the taxi trade looks after the town. Let’s face it, if every taxi and private hire vehicle went home at 11pm on a busy Saturday night and refused to come out until 8am the following day, there would be utter carnage throughout the town, and all the local services would probably be overwhelmed (then we would see some record breaking A & E admission statistcis!).

Now lets take a look at this for a moment. Part of our Council Tax we pay is in order to pay for the Police force locally, the Ambulance service, Fire Brigade etc. are paid for through National Insurance, and the bouncers are paid hourly by the clubs. However, the Taxi trade have to PAY THE COUNCIL A LICENCE FEE to be there and if the wheels don’t turn – we don’t earn, and yet we are the ones who are actually managing the town. Now this may only be on a logistical basis, but nonetheless, without the service we provide, would you agree that everything would turn to utter chaos?

The service we provide dramatically reduces the accumulation of people on the street throughout any busy night, and our essential presence at Fore Street Rank means that people can roll out of the clubs and eateries, and straight into a Taxi which takes them away from the town and out of harms way, thus dramatically reducing the opportunity for damage to person and property within the town. We are an ESSENTIAL SERVICE!

Yet despite how essential we are, we continue to be bombarded by idiotic proposals from people who know absolutely nothing about the subject matter they propose on, and year on year we find ourselves under attack from these. So now some bright spark has said “I feel that we really need to move the taxi queues elsewhere, so that groups of alcohol fuelled individuals don’t get drawn together to the same place at the end of the evening”. What an absolutely excellent idea! Let’s relocate the Taxi Rank to Sainsbury’s car park so that the crowds cannot find us at all and stay in the town wandering aimlessly whilst beating each other up and vandalising everything. You can put up as much signage as you like, drunk people cannot read!

Why does the world hate Taxis so much? – What do you think?

The Public Health team want to close and move Fore Street Rank!

The reasons Public Health gave for their request is as follows:-

“This is a single carriageway one way road, with queues and crowds waiting to go into the nightclub, drinking outside the pub, eating and going to and from fast food outlets, and getting off or waiting for taxis.

After hours at the weekend it’s the single location in Cornwall with the largest incidence of assaults and A&E presentations.

Sailors have redesigned their entrance, doubled up on ticket machines, moved the queue further inside, created a smoking area at the back, gone to all plastic/no glass, and removed bar furniture from the front of their premises.

We still have problems, and I feel that we really need to move the taxi queues elsewhere, so that groups of alcohol fuelled individuals don’t get drawn together to the same place at the end of the evening.

My suggestions would be to end its use after 11PM, and to have a second taxi waiting area either on the Sainsbury’s Carpark (while it’s closed) or round by the bus bays.”

This is a very serious issue and we need your comments now!