JIM Blackburn, chairman of Blackburn with Darwen's licensing committee, believes the additional costs private hire drivers complain about could have been funded in other ways.

He said: "It currently costs a driver less than £1 a week to be licensed to drive a taxi. If the driver operates his own licensed vehicle the cost of the vehicle licence, taxi safety tests and driver licence works out at less than £1 a day.

"The Council aims to recover the cost of licensing but does not make a profit - officer time is spent on investigating complaints as well as ensuring that safety standards are maintained, which is our priority.

"Initiatives such as the taxi marshal scheme and a pilot taxi-voucher scheme present real business opportunities to the trade."

The taxi marshal scheme involves special booking staff being deployed in Blackburn town centre on weekend nights to call in private hire vehicles to take people home if there are not enough hackney carriages.

It means that, for the first time, private hire vehicles are getting a share of the late-night custom normally reserved for the overstretched hackney carriage fleet.

Disabled groups have also expressed concern that price fares may lead to vulnerable sectors of society, such as the blind, staying in more because they cannot afford higher fares.

And Conservative councillor Edward Harrison said: "If prices go up, they should be pegged to inflation.

"We are trying to make our town centre safer but we can't do that if people put themselves at risk by walking home at night. That is what they will do if they feel taxi fares have gone up too much."