Taxi rank blocked for weekend in busy Mayo town

The Cathaoirleach of Castlebar Municipal District has called for the main taxi rank in the town to be marked as a no-go area for other vehicles after it was blocked by a parked truck for an entire weekend.

“I was contacted by taxi drivers as the rank at the bottom of Main Street was blocked off the whole weekend with a truck parked there and bollards on the road," Cllr Donna Sheridan told last week's meeting of the municipal council. "People could not get lifts from the main taxi rank."

Cllr Sheridan asked if truck drivers had been given a licence to park there and if not what was the council going to do about it. She said the incident showed a complete lack of respect for the taxi drivers trying to earn a living. 

“It is very disrespectful to park in somebody’s workplace. Everyone needs their income. We talked before about painting the rank and we need to do that - a certain colour - to make it stand out and stop people parking.” 

Cllr Cyril Burke said he could not understand why the truck needed to be there for the whole weekend at all.

MD Head David Mellett confirmed that no licence was granted for trucks to park in the taxi rank, adding: “There is a loading bay that changes to a taxi rank. We will follow this up and investigate what happened.”