Cambridge City Council has announced its plans to put in place three new late-night taxi ranks to cater for the buzzing city nightlife.
Party goers won’t have to stumble far to grab a black cab home as the council’s proposal includes new ranks outside Lola Lo’s, The Regal and Vodka Revolution on Downing Street.
Solving Black Cab Over-ranking
“It’ll take some pressure off of the existing ranks and make sure the taxis are able to do more jobs.”
The Cambridge hackney taxi trade is said to have been requesting these ranks for quite some time in an attempt to solve problems with illegal over-ranking on the busy weekend nights.
General Secretary of the Cambridge Hackney Carriage Association, Paul Bradley, said: “The rules state that we’ve to make our way back to a rank once we’ve done a job. So we’ve actually ended up with taxis ranking illegally outside The Regal and Lola Lo’s.
“It’ll take some pressure off of the existing ranks and make sure the taxis are able to do more jobs. It’s also better for the public as well because they know they’re getting into a proper, safe taxi.”
Consultation
The proposal has been published on the Council’s website for public consultation with licensing chiefs welcoming the thoughts and ideas of both taxi drivers and members of the public.
Vice-Chairman of Cambridge City Council’s licensing committee, Councillor Jeremy Benstead, commented: “The taxi trade has been looking for somewhere to position these ranks for a while.
“There’s quite a bit of competition amongst the taxi trade to get into the ranks already in place. There’s more taxi ranks than people actually realise but the problem is that some ranks are much more appealing to taxi drivers as they’re closer to popular venues.
“We welcome comments on the proposal and in particular we’d like to hear where the public would like to see these taxi ranks.”
Have your say on the consultation via the Cambridge City Council’s website.