A meeting, planned within a month, will consider moving Byron’s CBD taxi rank from its current location opposite the Great Northern Hotel and outside Cocomangas nightclub on Jonson Street.
Police and community members have indicated the current position is not ideal because of its close proximity to the venues.
Key stakeholders, including a representative from ‘a local access committee’ and Byron’s taxi service, will be invited by Byron Council to ‘review the location of the taxi rank in Jonson street and to consider a new location in the broader context of safety and amenity of the Byron Bay town centre.’
All councillors voted unanimously in favour of the motion at Thursday’s meeting, which was put forward by Crs Di Woods and Basil Cameron.
During public access, Sandy Andrell from Byron Bay Taxis addressed Council and said that the current location is the safest place in town, and any move would have to be ‘carefully considered’. She also said that her company wants to be involved in the process. ‘The security guys from Cocomangas help when needed,’ she later told Echonetdaily, and that the ‘NSW taxi council has guidelines to assess or plan a taxi rank’.
‘Transport NSW funds taxi rank security personnel in many areas in NSW,’ says Ms Andrell.
‘They have told me many times that there is no funding for any additional hours to what we currently have. I told the Council that there would not be [funded] security available for any extra ranks around town, which was another of their ideas.’
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