Have St Albans Drivers Shown Us The Way To Go....From The BBC on Line

St Albans taxi drivers successfully strike over parking fines

There were chaotic scenes in St Albans as taxi drivers went on strike over what they view as over-zealous parking enforcement.

Frustrations were heightened on Thursday afternoon when fifteen tickets were issued to taxis parked on the rank in St Peter’s Street.

The drivers subsequently stopped work and began a ‘go-slow’ protest through the city centre. The drivers said why they took the action:
“There are a lot of taxis operating in St Albans and not enough parking spaces to accommodate all the drivers. “The Council wants the drivers to drive around until there’s a free space on the rank, but that’s just not feasible, we can’t work that way,” explained one of the drivers.

After a meeting between taxi driver representative Mohammed Khan and the Chief Executive of St Albans District Council, the parking tickets were rescinded.
Steve Deakin, Parking Contract Manager at St Albans City and District Council, said in statement: “It is difficult to manage the taxi rank in St Peter’s Street, St Albans, safely with the number of taxis that need to use it. Owing to a misunderstanding, the civil enforcement officers have issued tickets to taxis using the rank.
“We have agreed to work with the taxi drivers on how to make the taxi rank work better and to agree alternative places for them to wait within the city centre area. In the meantime, we are continuing with arrangements that were in place up until now.

“We have agreed not to enforce the tickets that were issued today and the taxi drivers have agreed that they will help the civil enforcement officers ensure that the taxi rank operates safely. We are very pleased that the taxi drivers are working as usual and look forward to our discussions in the future.”