THE thorny issue of where a permanent taxi rank should be sited in Launceston was discussed at the town's chamber of commerce meeting.

Three taxi drivers in the town attended the meeting, along with the police neighbourhood beat manager, to put forward their views.

The current location of the rank is on Broad Street, a two-way street.

The meeting heard that the rank needs to be in the centre of town and accessible for elderly passengers — Exeter Street was deemed too far for elderly passengers to walk.

Other suggestions were outside Barclays Bank, using two sides with eight spaces, Madford Lane, Western Road alongside the Castle wall and the cobbled area of High Street.

Chamber members were told that the cobbled area of High Street was a 'non-starter', being one lane and that it would 'impact' on market days. Outside Barclays would displace the loading bays and Western Road was considered 'too difficult' for elderly passengers.

And siting the taxi rank at Madford Lane could put 'livelihoods in danger' if there was a drop in passenger numbers, it was stated.

The three taxi drivers who attended the meeting were Ray Roberts from Launceston Taxis, Mervyn Pollard from Kernow Kabs and Jackie Green from LJ Taxi.

Mr Roberts said: "Because the majority of our customers during the day are elderly, they don't want to go up to Madford Lane or anywhere like that. A lot of our customers can't walk that far.

"Where it is at the moment is very dangerous — opening doors on to a main road. I can see someone getting injured there very soon.

"I would personally like to see the rank where it used to be by Barclays Bank, where the loading bays are now. When they pedestrianised the square they took us away from where we were — on a temporary basis we thought.

"Why couldn't the lorries deliver before 9am, which we used to have when the rank was over by the other place?"

For the full report, and a round-up of the area news and sport, see this week's edition of the Post.