The chairperson of Our Union Street has cautioned that Aberdeen is approaching Scotland’s largest free event – the Tall Ships – with the lowest number of taxis seen in years.
Bob Keiller, who leads the community organisation advocating for the revitalisation and rejuvenation of Union Street, urged the council to modify the “increasingly dubious” knowledge examination in order to attract more drivers.
This warning follows a revelation last month from the Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce, indicating that Aberdeen City Council was unaware of how many taxis and private hire vehicles would be permitted into the city centre when their LEZ exemption ends on June 1.
Critics have labeled the situation as “economic self-harm,” and the local authority has confirmed it is in discussions to extend the exemption to allow greater access to the city centre during the Tall Ships event in July and Offshore Europe in September.
Writing in The Press & Journal, Bob Keiller expressed his discontent with a council report that concluded there was “no evidence of significant unmet demand” for taxis within the city.
He wrote: “My fear is that this report could be used to justify the continuation of the increasingly dubious street knowledge test.
“Scottish Government guidelines state that any topographical knowledge test should reflect the complexity of the local geography, on the principle of ensuring that barriers to entry are not unnecessarily high.
“On this basis, you might expect that any test for Aberdeen will be simpler and easier than those tests for our larger and more geographically complex cousins, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
“But while Aberdeen requires private hire drivers to complete a comprehensive street knowledge test – neither Edinburgh nor Glasgow has this. The barrier to entry is definitely, unnecessarily high.”
Bob concluded: “We will be heading into the Tall Ships and Offshore Europe with fewer taxis than we have had for many years.”
