New taxis in Eastbourne may no longer be required to be wheelchair accessible, if a change in guidance is approved by councillors next week.
On Tuesday (December 5), Eastbourne Borough Council’s licensing committee is set to consider a number of changes to the authority’s licensing guidelines for taxi operators, following a public consultation exercise earlier this year.
The proposals include a significant change to the rules around wheelchair accessible vehicles. At the moment, any new vehicles being put forward for use as a hackney carriage have to be wheelchair accessible to be considered by the council.
The council is proposing that it removes this requirement, both because the relatively high cost of wheelchair-accessible vehicles has been seen as ‘a barrier’ to new drivers entering the trade and because of concerns that such vehicles may not be suitable for all disabled passengers.
It is also worth noting that all hackney and private hire drivers have a duty to carry disabled persons generally and provide mobility assistance, whether or not they have a wheelchair-accessible vehicle.
The consultation, which generated 342 responses from residents and members of the taxi trade, showed most respondents (55 per cent) supported this change going ahead.
The committee is also set to consider a number of other changes, including a new requirement for drivers to sign up to the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) update service when renewing their licences. Most respondents (65 per cent) also supported this change.
Other changes include a reworded penalty point scheme, the introduction of a Customer and Driver Charter, and a new requirement for taxi drivers to carry a spare wheel and tyre-changing tools at all times. All three of these changes saw support from respondents to the consultation.
The consultation also sought views on whether in-vehicle CCTV systems should be able to record audio. Audio recording is currently prohibited, but his question was posed as in-vehicle CCTV recently became a mandatory requirement for all Private Hire and Hackney Carriage vehicles.
Most respondents (50.7 per cent) supported the lifting of the prohibition on audio recording.
