Post by The Dark Knight on Nov 10, 2023 9:03:55 GMT
Bristol’s cabbies are being put out of work by council licensing delays and mixups
Private hire and Hackney carriage drivers have had enough of the city’s licensing department, with some waiting needlessly for months for permits to be renewed before they can get back on the road.
Festus Kudehinbu, who has been a taxi driver in Bristol for almost three decades, was out of work for three months last winter because of delays with the renewal of his taxi licence.
The 64-year-old, who lives in St Agnes, is one of several taxi drivers we have spoken to recently who have been affected by issues with Bristol City Council’s taxi licence application process. The delays have put drivers’ livelihoods on hold for weeks or months.
“It meant I didn’t have income – I was worried I wouldn’t be able to pay for heating,” Festus tells the Cable. “It really affected my nervous system, it gets you down, into depression… I am worried it will happen again.”
According to data released to us under freedom of information (FOI) laws, taxi drivers in the city are waiting far longer for licence renewals than the local authority’s target 10-day processing time.
Festus’s is up for renewal again this month. To make sure he does all the paperwork correctly he’s asked a friend who’s “better with technology” to help him with his application.
The application process is entirely online, and Festus says people struggling with technical issues are met with a wall of silence because the support phone line is usually busy, and staff unhelpful.
He says he was not sure of the nature of the delay last time round, and that it hadn’t been explained to him.
“Some [people] don’t know how to do things online,” he says, adding that taxi drivers used to rely on a face-to-face application service in Bedminster, which was shut down during the pandemic and never reopened.
thebristolcable.org/2023/11/bristol-taxi-drivers-licensing-delays/
Private hire and Hackney carriage drivers have had enough of the city’s licensing department, with some waiting needlessly for months for permits to be renewed before they can get back on the road.
Festus Kudehinbu, who has been a taxi driver in Bristol for almost three decades, was out of work for three months last winter because of delays with the renewal of his taxi licence.
The 64-year-old, who lives in St Agnes, is one of several taxi drivers we have spoken to recently who have been affected by issues with Bristol City Council’s taxi licence application process. The delays have put drivers’ livelihoods on hold for weeks or months.
“It meant I didn’t have income – I was worried I wouldn’t be able to pay for heating,” Festus tells the Cable. “It really affected my nervous system, it gets you down, into depression… I am worried it will happen again.”
According to data released to us under freedom of information (FOI) laws, taxi drivers in the city are waiting far longer for licence renewals than the local authority’s target 10-day processing time.
Festus’s is up for renewal again this month. To make sure he does all the paperwork correctly he’s asked a friend who’s “better with technology” to help him with his application.
The application process is entirely online, and Festus says people struggling with technical issues are met with a wall of silence because the support phone line is usually busy, and staff unhelpful.
He says he was not sure of the nature of the delay last time round, and that it hadn’t been explained to him.
“Some [people] don’t know how to do things online,” he says, adding that taxi drivers used to rely on a face-to-face application service in Bedminster, which was shut down during the pandemic and never reopened.
thebristolcable.org/2023/11/bristol-taxi-drivers-licensing-delays/