184

of 500 signatures

To Richard Turfitt, Office of the Traffic Commissioner and Mike Wynne, Taxi Licensing, Scottish Borders Council

Scottish Borders Council don't care about and have little to no communication with the taxi industry in the Borders. Taxi drivers have not had a fare increase for around 7 years even though it’s meant to be reviewed every 18 months. During Covid 2020 we were due a fare increase but it never happened because the council were understaffed - but still managed to increase the council licence fees for taxi drivers and operators.

In 2022 we received an email apology from the council stating that because of Covid and working from home, they could not review the fares and again managed to increase the fees taxis have to pay.

At a time when fuel prices were at their highest and inflation went up by over 11 percent, we asked the council to take action and by December 2022 we were told we could have a 4.6 percent increase to fares. However this was still below other councils and below inflation, so it subsequently received some objections.

The council then decided to not go ahead with any fare increase until the objections could be reviewed. It’s now December 2023 and still we have not had any word about when or if there is going to be a fare increase for taxis in the Scottish Borders. It’s becoming very difficult to keep a taxi running now because of the low income they generate and over 50 percent of drivers over the past 3 years have now left the industry.

Public transport in the heart of the Scottish Borders for the first time in as long as I can remember is at an all time low. Bus services are being cut and finishing earlier and earlier, trains are being cancelled daily and taxis are struggling to cover costs.

Petition text

The Scottish Borders Council need to stop being an obstacle to the taxi fare increase, open up a line of communication with operators and take responsibility for the years of neglect to the taxi trade.

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