Four options for policy governing taxis in Dundee and a potential cap on the number of cabs in the city will be considered by city councillors next month.
A report outlining options will be available for one of next month’s meetings of Dundee’s licensing committee around six months after it was initially due to be completed.
At yesterday’s committee meeting, council solicitor Brian Woodcock said the report will be available for either the March 3 or March 31 meeting and is likely to offer four options.
He said, after requests from the taxi trade, the council agreed to undertake a review of its policy on new taxi licence applications.
The report on that review was initially expected to be ready by last autumn, but was delayed by “a number of issues including the enormity of the task.”Impact assessmentMr Woodcock said it had also emerged that an equality impact assessment would have to be carried out for each of the four options, and it was considered advisable to include issues around corporate licences.
However, “subject to anything coming out of the blue,” he anticipated the report would be available next month.
Dundee Taxi Association has been involved in a lengthy campaign to cap the number of cabs in the city, saying there are already too many taxis competing for ever-dwindling business.
The issue came to the fore again last month when Perth and Kinross decided to retain its limit on the number of taxis, which has been in force since 1979.
However, even if next month’s report does come down in favour of reintroducing a cap on numbers in Dundee, it is only the first step. The council would then have to undertake a demand survey before it could fix an appropriate quota.