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Does anyone have the latest on how the Equality Bill will effect the Hackney & Private hire trade in general?
Quite a lot of controversy flying about, making all Hackney licensed taxi's (and Private Hire) wheelchair accessible?
Can anyone clarify?

Sorry I will rephrase this:
Can anyone put this in straight forward English in as short as it can be put!!?
In other words cut out the gobbledegook....
Thanks

Hi Towag,

As I understand the section of the equality bill which effects the Taxi/Private Hire industry, this is what will happen, All licensing authorities will have to have a certain amount of their fleet as wheelchair accessable Taxis. However this would be decided by having a consultation after the equality bill becomes law to decide what percentage would have to be WAV's dependant on population and location (Rural-Urban). Private Hire vehicles have be excluded from this bill.

The interesting part will be were councils restrict H/C plates in large urban area's such as Brighton & Hove my home city. The council may be told for example that 50% of the fleet has to be WAV's, if as currently there is only 20% WAV's , the council could issue more plates to reach that figure, or the trade could offer to go 100% WAV to keep restrictions in place and keep managed growth in place.

Its all very confusing and anyone who can give their opinions would be most welcome.

Regards
BB

Thanks BB....
Seems to me that this will not make any difference in Winchester....
We have 129 H/C here, that is 49 saloons and 80 wav's with no limitation in sight....
Oh... we also have over 200 private hire as well....

At present we average about one fare per hour..... on a good day maybe two.... so no hope here... That was before the recession!!
(Works out after taking out overheads less than the minimum working wage!)
I suppose it's better than nothing as I have no mortgage or cab payments to make, so I can just about survive with tax credits....
As you may already know cabbie's here in Winchester are their own worst enemies.... I've tried to make them see sense, by joining the GMB, getting advice and pushing the Council here to have an unmet demand survey (they won't wear it!) but have now given up on that one!!
So sadly it's survival of the strongest and fittest now....

Regards T

Absolutely, it always was the survival of the fittest and especially in an competitive environment as driving a taxi you always have to be on your toes and be ready to go tat further extent to please the passengers so that they pay you well and have a better impression.