When is a road not a road?

Now this blogger is really upset at what he heard on Friday of this week. Unfortunately due to the nature of being snowed under before Christmas this is the first chance I've had to blog about it.

Bristol Temple Meads Station was Brunel's great auditorium for his great railway. It is now it would appear the centre of a brewing storm between two fundamental arms of the public transport system. in the red corner we have the railway in the shape of First Great Western, in the blue corner we have the hard working hackney cab drivers of the Bristol Area. (blue is appropriate because all Bristol Hackney cabs are now blue in Bristol)

The problem, well First Great Western now want to make all vehicles that enter the station have a permit to drive onto the station front. Is this for security I ask you? No it's for profit. And it includes the Bristol Hackney drivers who operate from a public stand on the station front.

This is plainly ridiculous for several reasons.

1. Bristol Temple Meads is a Public Transport hub, in other words it is a place where you can move from one form of Public Transport to another. It is not a private transport hub and unless the directors of First Great Western have somehow instigated a coup ousting the present government then it will remain a Public Transport system in the United Kingdom. This means First Group are required to provide a service to the public.

2. The taxi rank is a Public taxi rank as defined by the law. This means that Hackney cab drivers have an absolute right to use that rank without hindrance or charge as they pay for their plate via the local council. So First Great Western by trying to charge for this are in fact seeking to break the law.

3. If the taxis are forced away from Temple Meads then they will start to use the A4 or Temple Back to pick up customers causing extra congestion around what is already a very congested part of the city, particularly at rush hour.

4 Customers will be almost forced to use First Bus 8 or 9 from the station, an unreliable service owned by First Group. This is effectively making first Group act as a cartel which in this humble blogger's opinion is contrary to competition and definitely not within the public interest.

5. Should the charge be levied upon the Hackney Drivers then ultimately that charge will be passed on to users who already suffer on of the highest taxi charges anywhere in the United Kingdom because of current legislation.

So essentially First Great Western and First Group are seeking to turn Public Transport into private transport by the back door.

Brunel was a businessman yes, however he was also a visionary and was passionate about allowing the public to move around our great land. However it would seem that the modern day sharks that follow in his path are more concerned about making profit over the commitment to public duty.

We need to support the taxi drivers in their campaign because if not it would be like that Chamberlain moment all over again and we know what happened when he sought appeasement.