FROM next month two of Skipton's major employers will see their licence fees increased to balance the council's budget deficit.

Hackney carriage drivers will face a 20 per cent increase from April 1, taking the licence cost up to £179.96. However the increase will be phased in over three years, and will inevitably mean higher fares for customers.

Craven District Council needs to find some £23,000 to balance its hackney carriage service budget.

But taxi drivers are unhappy, and this week presented a petition to Coun Ken Luty, chairman of Craven District Council's taxi liaison group.

They say the increases "cannot be justified" and they want the position be reviewed as a matter of urgency.

Owner of Dalesman Taxis Stephen Pickering said he could not see why the council needed an extra income of £23,000. He said the taxi company had not seen any extra services or money spent on it.

"All we get is one licensing chap for one day a week and a secretary. It would probably be cheaper to set up our own office and run something from that. It is not as if we are getting more people policing the ranks," he said.

Mr Pickering added that eventually these extra licence costs would have to be passed onto the customers in terms of fare increases.

He said that taxi drivers had had to contend with the increase in petrol in last year's Budget and it had taken them months to recuperate their losses.

But Coun Luty told them: "I realise no one likes paying fees to the council but I should stress that licensing of hackney carriages and drivers is a public safety matter which the council has a statutory duty to do.

"The cost to the council in administering the hackney carriages provisions is some £60,000 per annum and the net cost of this service to the council was some £23,000 per annum. In other words the council taxpayer was subsidising taxi drivers and owners by £23,000 per annum.

"When committee considered this matter the members were clear in their view that the cost of licensing individuals to run their own business should not be a cost to the council tax payer.

"The committee felt that those benefiting from being licensed should pay fees to cover full economic cost to the council in administering, issuing and enforcing the licensing provisions.

"I should also stress that the committee did consider the burden of these fees on what are small businesses and decided to phase the increase in over a three year period and not seek to recover the full economic cost until the year 2003."

Skipton's market stallholders are also aggrieved about their licence increase. At the moment the fee is 22p per square metre of stall, but Craven District Council is to increase it by 13 per cent in order to find an extra income of over £7,500 and

Eileen Dugdale, who runs Dales Footwear, said it was like paying two rents - one to the shop frontages and one to the council. "We have a shop down Hallam's Yard and it is cheaper to work there than sit out here.

"It is the only market town which discourages people from coming in. What happens to Skipton if the market goes? It is crazy they are taking money hand over fist."

On a similar note Mohammad Shabir, who owns Impressions clothes stall, said: "You do not know whether to laugh or cry." He believed the councillors were trying to push stall holders off the High Street.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.