SIR — I feel I must respond to the letter (Mailbox, July 10) in relation to the perceived "state of anarchy on local roads", and in particular the correspondent's comment on local taxis whom it was implied, show little regard for our town's traffic systems.
In my view the situation is exasperated by our own council (Chesterfield Borough) in that the number of new taxi licences issued increase with seemingly little or no consideration to the effect on existing drivers within the trade.
In the last 1
4 years we have seen the number of licensed cars increase from 36 to its current tally of 154. We anticipate this number to swell further, reaching 170 by Christmas 2008.
Over the same period, Derbyshire County Council has not increased the number of taxi ranks from 15 across the entire town centre.
It is therefore understandable that having invested up to £24,000 in a vehicle and obtaining a taxi licence that situations similar to those described will occur; simply because drivers need to earn a living in a town under-equipped to accommodate them.
An additional issue is that unlike other comparable towns and cities, our taxi drivers are unable to make use of bus lanes — resulting in increased traffic and customer inconvenience that gives us a public transport system out of step with other areas of our region.
I am sure many of Chesterfield's workers, from taxi drivers to market traders, would each like to participate in our town centre's regeneration, but accessibility and an integrated public transport system are crucial and for that we look to the borough and county councils to take a lead.
DAVID HOPTON,
Chairman,
Chesterfield Hackney Owner's and Driver's Assocation.
The full article contains 289 words and appears in Derbyshire Times newspaper.
