Brighton and Hove City Council has pledged to “crack down” on taxi drivers and other road users using taxi ranks as free parking spaces after the chairman of the Brighton Cab Trade Association said it needs to do more to prevent troublesome taxi drivers abusing their licences.
Chairman Andrew Peters said local cabbies are being pushed out of taxi ranks by London taxi drivers who use the spaces as free parking on weekends.
He said: “The public has no regard that these are working taxi ranks.
“We have London taxis that use our ranks at the weekend for free parking and we have a continuous issue of our ranks being used by Uber private hire cars from areas such as Lewes and Chichester sitting on the ranks which is illegal.”
The cabs using the ranks in Brighton are beyond their licence agreements which are issued in the capital.
Mr Peters told trade magazine Taxi Point: “It is very disappointing that some of our London colleagues seem to think that our working ranks can be used for free parking in Brighton.”
The illegal parking means that the licensed white and turquoise hackney carriages in Brighton are forced away from their dedicated bays making it harder for passengers to find taxis and drivers to find passengers.
A spokeswoman for Transport for London said: “We expect high standards from all London licensed taxi and private hire vehicle drivers and no vehicle should be unattended on a taxi rank.
“If we receive information about potential misconduct by London licensed taxi or private hire vehicle drivers we will work with the relevant local licensing authority.”
Read more: Taxi licence fees to rise as well as cost of tests
Mr Peters said it is “very rare” for there to be no private cars parked at the city’s four troublesome ranks.
“This constantly happens on the two ranks in Goldstone Villas, as well as the ranks in Paston Place outside the chemist and Church Street by the Dome.
“These ranks have been there for many years.”
Brighton cabbies have been encouraged to report these incidents to the council’s traffic enforcement team – but Mr Peters says that even parking fines won’t stop the issue.
He demanded meetings with the council to arrange specific times to catch drivers illegally parking at the ranks, and using ANPR cameras to increase enforcement.
The chairman said: “The amount of PCNs will be a fraction of what could be issued because of the continuous illegal parking.”
The chair of the council’s licensing committee, Councillor Emma Daniel, said: “Non-authorised vehicles being parked in taxi ranks is a national issue.
“But I’m very aware of the concerns raised locally about this issue by our taxi forum.
“We offer our local taxi drivers a local rapid response enforcement number.
“They can – and frequently do – use this to report concerns about vehicles being inappropriately parked in taxi ranks.
“Our parking enforcement team is committed to responding as quickly as possible to these alerts, and to issuing Penalty Charge Notices where appropriate.
“The team will be working with the forum to identify the taxi ranks and nights this happens most frequently and crack down on it.
“Nobody should be using taxi ranks as a parking spot. People need to understand that they risk being fined for doing so as we crack down.”
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