TEIGNBRIDGE Council's Regulatory and Appeals Committee has ignored the pleas of taxi drivers and Teignbridge MP Richard Younger-Ross to suspend issuing Hackney carriage plates for 12 months.

Many long-standing taxi drivers in the district are angry the district authority allowed deregulation 18 months ago, which they maintain wiped £1 million off the industry at a stroke, and has seen the number of plates snowball from 80 plus to more than 200.

On Thursday last week the drivers appealed to the committee to suspend the licences saying some of them were working extremely long hours and some had been forced to claim tax credits to survive financially.In its decision announced on Monday, the committee contended the council was not lawfully permitted to suspend issuing further licences and was only able to refuse to grant a licence if it was satisfied that there was not significant unmet demand.

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