Liverpool Council to offer Covid-19 grants of up to £210 to all taxi and private hire drivers

Around 4,000 taxi and private hire taxi drivers in Liverpool will be able to claim support grants of £210 to help them cope with the loss of revenue in the Coronavirus crisis.

Bar and restaurant restrictions, and a fall in tourism and business travel has had a devastating impact on the taxi trade. Liverpool’s 3,886 licensed hackney carriage and private hire drivers have seen their incomes plummet due to pandemic and Liverpool is currently back in Tier 3 lockdown, causing further hardship to the taxi trade.

Liverpool Council has approved a grant for all hackney and private hire vehicle drivers which is equivalent to the £40 cost of their driver badge, plus a further £170 for their vehicle plate if they own the cab – a total of up to £210. The total cost of £663,400 will be covered through the £10 million set aside by the council earlier this month to help alleviate the impact of Covid-19 trading restrictions in the visitor economy.

There are 1,426 hackney carriages in the city and 1,561 private hire vehicles. They are driven by 1,882 hackney carriage drivers and 2,004 private hire drivers. Details on how the grant will be made available will be publicised in the coming days.

Tommy McIntyre from the union Unite, which represents many drivers in Liverpool, said: “We are grateful to the support being shown to the trade by the city council. We are concerned that if there is no support to help the trade, we may not have a trade when we come out of this latest lockdown period.”