Taxi drivers in Alexandria and the rest of West Dunbartonshire have expressed concerns over rules governing wheelchair accessible vehicles.
The local guidelines state that 20% of all vehicles should be wheelchair accessible. The problem today stems from a report 4 years previously that wanted a fifth of all taxis to meet this standard.
David John Thomson, representing the local taxi drivers, commented in the Daily Record that it would not be viable for taxi drivers to meet this standard if it were to be enforced.
The Council Committee were advised that nearly 8% of vehicles currently met the standard but that peak demand for these vehicles was only 7 in one day. Currently the various taxi groups operate a policy of helping one another out for wheelchair accessible vehicles and that the number of complaints over the period of a few years was a mere handful.
The Council is going to monitor the situation and it hopes that when some of the current larger vehicles are due for replacement that this will be done with wheelchair accessible ones.
It seems that the taxi owners could benefit from using local printers to produce leaflets and questionnaires about the current service, possible changes and the costs that would need to be met by users.
