Taxi strike hits St Albans city centre: update

Charlotte Morgan

Published: 4:23 PM August 19, 2010 Updated: 2:43 PM November 1, 2020

“UNFAIR” parking tickets have prompted a taxi strike in St Albans city centre.

According to St Albans taxi driver Amjad Khan, the strike, which started just after 3pm yesterday and is set to continue over the weekend, is a direct result of St Albans district council traffic wardens imposing fines on carriages parked in the St Peter’s Street and city station taxi ranks.

Amjad, who said that there will be no St Albans taxis running until at least Monday, said: “We’ve come to blows with the council over this so many times. Licensed cabs are being ticketed for parking in legitimate taxi ranks for no apparent reason, and they need to stop discriminating against us.”

Amjad, who also claims that the St Albans taxi ranks are not big enough to accommodate the number of carriages in the city, added: “We’re all mucking in and will continue to stand up together in an effort to make the council understand.”

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The strike is said to affect both Hackney carriages and some private taxi firms, although the number of drivers ignoring the strike is currently unknown.

A local resident who does not wish to be named said that it was “chaos” at the station yesterday evening: “There must have been at least 40 taxis parked at the station, and all of them were refusing to take passengers. I saw a couple of people trying to get into taxis and fail - there was a lot of anger at the station yesterday!”