11pm Tuesday night (27/08/19), saw the five Taxi rank at Hakkasan completely occupied by three Private hire vehicles, two of which are pictured above, and also two high end customer cars. This has now become a regular sight throughout the West End and Mayfair.
August has seen the normal influx of tourists from the Middle East. Any form of regulation seems to be shut down at this time of year, as the West End is overrun with illegal parking and hoards of illegal electrical powered Rickshaw bikes.
If you complain to the police, they just say “this is low priority offence and they have no officers available to attend any incidents that may arise from these issues”.
What's become even more apparent, is the complete lack of enforcement from both TfL and Westminster Traffic Marshals.
I took it upon myself again on Tuesday night, to inform the three Private Hire cars parked on the rank that they were in contravention of their licence, by parking on a licensed Taxi rank. Their response was the same I always get, a mixture of laughs and profanity. No help from the door staff who say (rightly so), it's not their job to police the rank.
The MiniCab drivers don't even get upset anymore, even when you take photos and threaten to report them to TfL, which points to a possibility (what we've always suspected) that our complaints about this type of problem at Taxi Ranks, are falling on death ears.
Luckily enough, while I was parked on the bus stop, waiting for the Minicabs to move....along came a Westminster traffic marshal on a moped. He parked at the front of the rank and as soon as he produced his ticket book the three Minicabs decided they weren't brave enough to stick it out and proceeded to move off. I pulled forward onto the rank and was joined by another driver in a Vito.
As other taxis were just driving by, we had to spread out a bit, to made sure no other minicabs could occupy the rank.
The warden ticketed the two private cars at the front of the rank but it's a shame he failed to take the numbers of the three Minicabs as its a straight away offence with no time period, which means that PCNs can be issued straight away.
I did offer the Marshal the registration numbers and photographic evidence...but he wasn't interested and declined my offer.
It's about time this rank was marked out properly as is Sketch (finally), Nobu and Novikov. I remember members of the joint ranks committee telling me it was a waste of time trying to get a rank at Novikov's
Most of the aggregation at Hakkasan comes from the fact, the drivers committing these contraventions don't realise it's actually a working rank as the tiny signage on the lamppost is confusing and easily missed. This rank needs marking out, not once a week untrained marshals from a certain org that take it more as a prolonged well paid coffee break than a marshalling job.
While we are on about Mayfair Ranks, surely it's time we had a proper rank outside Annabel's. There is a definite need and Taxis are forced to form a pop up rank most nights.
Where are the Joint Ranks Committee with their chairperson Richard Massett on these important issues ?
Are they Waiting and seeing in the fashion of their mentors at W9 ?
TAXI LEAKS EXTRA BIT :
Wednesday night 29/07/19 again around 11pm. Hakkasan full of Minicabs. But this time I actually managed to get four of them to move off, just by approaching them and politely pointing out they were sitting parked on a Taxi tank.
The fifth said he was a private car and there was nothing I could do to him.
I noticed his photo ID, so I put his registration into the PH online check and low and behold his details emerged that he was in fact a TfL registered minicab even though his vehicle wasn’t displaying roundels.
Details of all these vehicles have now been sent to TfL.
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