A disability rights campaigner has warned that Dundee City Council will be going down the wrong road if it orders all of its taxis to become wheelchair-access vehicles.
Jan Goodall was speaking ahead of Thursday’s licensing committee’s debate into producing a new policy on taxi licences.
As we reported earlier this week, a report by depute chief executive Patricia McIlquham concludes by inviting councillors to choose from two options. Under each, operators of non-wheelchair-access vehicles would be asked to change their cars to ones with wheelchair access but the first option would also see a survey of the taxi market to ascertain the level of demand.
Mrs Goodall, convener of the Dundee Celebrate Age Network, is concerned about the proposals and said, “There is a misunderstanding about disability and I think it shows through again in this report.
“Many disabled people who can walk have difficulty in wheelchair-access vehicles. People who have arthritis or strokes, for example, struggle to get into these cabs and prefer to use saloon cars. Disability does not equate to wheelchair use, but I think there is a misconception that they mean the same thing.”
Taxi driver Roger Paterson said requiring all taxis to convert to wheelchair access would cost more than £5 million, if the average vehicle can be bought for around £20,000.
If these vehicles are sourced from outside Dundee, he calculated the cost including service charges would rise to over £6.5 million.
“If Dundee’s economy can withstand a hit like this in this present climate I will be amazed,” he said.