Herefordshire Council has confirmed it still requires special safety tests to be carried out to licensed taxi and private hire vehicles modified for wheelchair access.
The council has also suspended licences of taxis that have been converted from vans until they have an enhanced safety test. Neither is the council licensing any new vehicles that started life as a van.
However, the council has extended until 30 May 2008 the closing date for operators to submit test certificates. This is to allow the trade to book appointments for tests and have any failures rectified.
"The council continues to listen very carefully to local taxi operators and manufacturers, and we have tried to make concessions to help them", said the council's licensing manager Suzanne Laughland.
"We trust that taxi operators would agree that the safety of people who use their vehicles is the first and most important concern, and people who use a wheelchair should not have a lesser standard of safety than anyone else".
The council reports that it has acted on information provided by representatives from the trade and vehicle manufacturers during a meeting earlier this month (5 March 2008).
It has sought further advice from the Public Carriage Office, which licenses taxis in London, Department of Transport and VOSA (Vehicle and Operator Services Agency), which is responsible for assessing additional vehicle safety requirements. Additionally the council has also examined other approaches by other local authorities.
Furthermore the council will be working with a council-appointed vehicle test centre to sign off corrective action for minor non-conformances.
The council will produce guidance for the trade to provide clarification of the process; any other non-conformances will still be required to have the corrective action examined by VOSA.
A member of the taxi trade originally raised concerns for the safety of converted vans and wheelchair access vehicles.
The council's investigations found that tests did not assess the wheelchair access facilities fitted to vehicles, and to ensure these were safe, the council asked manufacturers to demonstrate they had quality procedures.
The manufacturers could show a test had been carried out on a prototype but were unable to demonstrate that every vehicle that is fitted with wheelchair access facilities is manufactured to that standard.
The council is still working with the manufacturers to obtain these assurances, but until they are satisfied the vehicles are consistently produced safely they will continue to ask for the VOSA tests.