A MEETING was taking place today in a bid to solve a taxi rank row in Burnley town centre.

The "booking'' of three taxis yesterday led to a strike by cab drivers in a dispute over the number of Hackney carriage ranks.

Taxis were double parked in Croft Street alongside the bus station causing traffic chaos in the town centre as drivers were involved in heated discussions with police.

About 30 cab drivers joined in the protest after three got tickets from traffic wardens for parking on double yellow lines.

The trouble which has been brewing for the last three weeks stems from Burnley Council's decision to increase the number of licences without providing more taxi parking.

Spokesman for the drivers Shabir Ahmed said: "The problem is that the council has issued 18 more plates bringing the total to 34 but there is only room on Croft Street for nine.

"For the past three weeks the traffic wardens have been moving us on and we have been going round like idiots with no places to park.''

The parking problem led to complaints from the bus station, Friendly Hotel, shopkeepers and motorists.

Mr Ahmed said: "The council should have given us ranks before they issued more licences. All we are doing is trying to make a living.

One of the lads has just spent £27,000 on a new vehicle but like all of us is struggling because of the parking problem. "We are trying to do things as sensibly as possible and trying not to cause an obstruction. We are being given the run around. We have protested to the council but no-one wants to listen to us.

"We are told we should be driving around plying for hire but this is not a big city like Manchester, it is Burnley.''

Police at the protest agreed to withdraw the three tickets issued yesterday but warned that parking on double yellow lines or causing an obstruction would not be allowed.

The drivers were told that complaints had been received and that police and traffic wardens had acted accordingly.

Police asked for more time to try to sort out the problem between them, the drivers and council and today's meeting at Burnley police station was agreed.

Mr Ahmed said they wanted temporary parking facilities until a permanent solution could be found.

The problem, he warned, would only get worse as the council intended to issue a further five licences a year for the next three years.

The drivers intend to renew the Hackney Cab Drivers' Association so they can deal with any future problems as an organisation rather than as individuals.

The strike was lifted on the promise that talks would take place in an attempt to find a solution.

Burnley's officer in charge of licensing services, Ruth Wynne, said the problem was caused by the Hackney cab drivers all wanting to wait in Croft Street for fares to come to them rather than driving round plying for hire as they did in other towns. She said: "People in Burnley won't try to flag them down because they know they won't stop. They wait for people to come to them otherwise they are using diesel.''

There was no statutory duty for the council to provide ranks for all the cabs but six new parking spaces were to be established. It would take some time to go through the necessary legal process. In the meantime, efforts would be made to provide temporary parking spaces.

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