Call for wheelchair users to pay more for Oldham taxis

Just 12 of the borough’s 85 traditional taxis, or 14.1 per cent, are wheelchair accessible, with fewer available than before the pandemic, new figures show.

Of all Greater Manchester boroughs, just Oldham, Rochdale and Wigan’s taxi fleets were not 100 per cent wheelchair accessible.

Additionally, just 1.6 per cent of the borough’s private hire vehicles, which cannot be hired from the street like traditional taxis, are wheelchair accessible.

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David Lawrie, director of the National Private Hire and Taxi Association, said wheelchair-accessible vehicles are often too expensive for drivers to buy, with accessible electric vehicles costing around £70,000.

Oldham Private Hire Association vice chair Tariq Hussain echoed this concern, and called on the council to help drivers towards buying accessible vehicles, give longer licenses, subsidise MOTs, and give permission for drivers to use the bus lane in an emergency.

Mr Hussain also said that fares should be higher when carrying a wheelchair – something which is not allowed under current equality legislation.

Experts suggest a decrease seen in the number of licensed vehicles accessible for those with mobility difficulties in England and Wales is due to a lack of training and certification for the safe handling and transport of wheelchairs.

Department for Transport figures show Oldham had 1,105 licensed vehicles as of April, but only 28 could be used by people with mobility difficulties.

That is a decline from March 2020, when there were 39.

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Rick Burgess, campaign lead for Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People, called the idea of wheelchair users paying more  "disgraceful", explaining that the pandemic was a "real reducer" of accessible taxi services and that no company is 100 per cent reliable.

Mr Burgess said drivers now often cluster around fare hotspots, such as train stations and entertainment venues.

He said difficulties in arranging transport can leave disabled people feeling "more isolated and less included in mainstream society", with choices limited and overheads increased.

Mr Burgess added: “Going to meet some friends in a cafe can become an all-day sort of operation, that means enormous planning. That’s wrong. Society should not mean you have to become a logistics expert just to go out and meet someone in a cafe.

“The idea of being able to phone up a taxi and knowing that you’ll be taken on and you’ll get your journey is never a given, it’s stressful, it excludes you and it becomes more of a closed-off community that doesn’t get to be involved in the world as much as they want to be.”

Mr Burgess added that the idea of paying more for a wheelchair user would be exclusionary and illegal, but added that other options such as subsidised MOTs and changes to licensing could help.

Most local authorities require all or part of their taxi fleet to be wheelchair-accessible, but only five per cent of them have made it compulsory for private hire vehicles.

None of the Greater Manchester boroughs require private hire vehicles to be wheelchair accessible in all or part of the fleet.

There are 1,020 minicabs in Oldham. Just 16, or two per cent, can offer a ride to a wheelchair user.

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Across England and Wales, 237,622 (79 per cent) of the total 299,146 licensed vehicles are private hire, with just one in eight of them being wheelchair accessible.

There are also more than 11,000 fewer taxis on the streets of the two countries this year than in March 2020.

A DfT spokesperson said: “While it's down to local authorities to manage wheelchair accessible vehicles in their fleet, the Government is backing passengers with disability awareness training for drivers and bolstered laws, including fines, for those who fail to provide reasonable assistance.”

The DfT figures show there were five taxis and private hire vehicles for every 1,000 people in England and Wales at the beginning of April.

Oldham has a similar rate, with 4.6 per 1,000 people.

Cllr Elaine Taylor, cabinet member for housing and licensing at the council, said: “The shortage of wheelchair accessible minicabs across our country is concerning, and Oldham is not alone in facing this issue.

“We recognise that these vehicles are vitally important in helping people with disabilities to get around, and without extra provision for this mode of transport, more and more people will sadly continue to struggle when going about their daily lives.

“That is why more needs to be done at a national level to address this problem, including more support for drivers in purchasing this type of vehicle as local authorities cannot afford these additional costs.

“In the meantime, we do continue to offer drivers in our borough disability awareness training to help them better support their customers. All new taxi drivers must complete disability awareness training before they are licensed. This training isn’t restricted to wheelchair users only, but covers a range of disabilities they may come across.

“For those requiring a wheelchair accessible taxi, we have a published list of all vehicles, along with contact information on our website to assist disabled residents access the correct vehicle.

"This can be found on our licensing webpage at www.oldham.gov.uk/taxis.

“In response to Mr Hussain’s other concerns, the licence fee cannot to be reduced as this amount is based on the costs to deliver the service rather than the type of vehicle being licensed.

“No passenger should also have to pay more to use this type of service than others, especially due to their mobility, as this is illegal.”