The People’s Party of Puerto de la Cruz considers that there are “the appropriate technical and economic circumstances so that the City Council of the tourist city requires the Island Council of Tenerife to finance the ransom of not less than 50 of the 200 taxi licenses in the municipalityFollowing the example of what happened in Santa Cruz of Tenerife». A proposal that has caused surprise in the local government (PSOE-ACP), which through the socialist mayor Mark Gonzalez He replied that “this purely political approach should first be discussed at the Taxi Table”.
The popular remember that currently Cross port has 199 taxi licenses, «which must serve the 30,000 inhabitants by right and a maximum of 20,000 tourists that we can accommodate, plus approximately 2,000 people who come to the municipality to work. For what we are talking about that every day in the municipality there can be some 50,000 potential taxi users at most.”
The PP points out that “the recommended ratios of taxis per inhabitant for tourist cities range between 2.5 and 3.5 taxis per 1,000 inhabitants, so in Cross port, the ideal number of licenses would be between 125 and 175». For this reason, the popular ones consider that their rescue proposal, with the financial support of the Cabildo de Tenerife, would allow for a more sustainable taxi sector. To achieve this, they will propose the formalization of an agreement between both administrations to readjust the public service in Puerto de la Cruz and that, through the corresponding economic study prepared by the City Council, determine the total amount of the rescue and the amount that the Cabildo must assume.
The president of People’s Party in the tourist city and also councilman, Mountain Angel, points out that “it is necessary to provide economic stability to a group that has had a very bad time during the pandemic and that will allow it to look to the future with a certain degree of optimism. This future agreement with the Cabildo could be the first stone to materialize a historic demand in the sector.
For the local government (PSOE-ACP), the priority is now to agree on the sector ordinance
Mark Gonzalez anticipates that the proposal will be amended in the plenary session scheduled for this Monday, at eight in the morning, “because we understand that where these issues should be discussed is in the taxi table and not directly in plenary, without listening to the sector. The socialist mayor understands that the current priority is to approve the new ordinance of the taxi sector in the city, “which is prepared in a consensual way with the groups of taxi drivers», and considers that the shift and payroll system established after the worst moments of the pandemic allows maintaining an efficient service for the city and profitable for taxi drivers.
Nowadays, Porto taxis have work and rest shifts assigned by the City Council. «A system that took time to apply because it was wanted to be done with all the legal certainty and, up to now, has not generated any conflict, apart from some specific and personal complaints from professionals who, for example, reject not being able to make excursions in the days when they don’t have to work,” stressed the mayor.
For Mark Gonzalez, «the priority is the modification of the municipal ordinance of the taxi and, at least for now, no group in the sector has shown interest in opening the debate on the rescue of licences, which from the experience lived in Santa Cruz de Tenerife we know that it is a complex and very slow process. What the hell has a significant cost. In the chicharrera capital, the Cabildo has committed to financing around 40% of the cost of rescuing some 150 licenses between 2023 and 2025valued at around 4 million euros.
The sector feasibility study, commissioned and financed by the Porto City Council, does recognize that it would be possible to dispense with some of the 200 existing licences. However, for the local government, improving the shift and break system could be a better alternative for the future.
