There will be a 10% rise in the cost of taxi fares starting from next Tuesday, April 19.

Trade Union Unite’s taxi branch has said that in the last five annual tariff reviews members have overwhelmingly voted against a increase – the last one being in 2017, as the taxi drivers did not wish to pass the ever increasing costs onto the travelling public.

The rate of inflation from 2017 to 2022 amounted to around 14%.

Mike Birchall, secretary at Unite, said: ‘Since the start of 2022 we have, like all car users seen our costs escalate. Fuel costs alone have risen by approximately 30%. As has the price of used cars, which are two of our main costs in the trade.

‘We realise that the general public like ourselves have been hit hard by rising energy costs, food prices, and wages for the average working person will not rise significantly, which is why we deem it unreasonable to pass all of our extra costs onto our customers.

‘However, we are unlike other forms of public transport and are not subsidised by the tax payer.

‘After five years with no taxi tariff increase and rapidly escalating costs for taxi drivers, our members voted that taxi tariff’s should be raised by approximately 10% this year.

‘This taxi tariff increase has been approved by the RTLC, and metered fares will be raised by approximately 10% from April 19, 2022.’

It was announced this week that the rate of inflation had risen again to 6.7%, up by 0.2% since February.

Inflation has seen an unprecedented surge over the last year, partly due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine pushing energy prices even higher and largely due to the pandemic causing a multitude of issues in the supply chain.

The category ‘transport’ remains the largest contributor to the rate of inflation, providing a 2.6% increase in the overall 12 month rate.

‘Petrol and oil’ experienced the biggest increase in prices at 30.3%.

Average petrol prices have risen by 12.6p per litre from February to March which has also contributed to the rise.

Following this, the annual taxi tariff review was conducted by the Road Transport Licensing Committee (RTLC).