Council to provide city taxi drivers with £860, 000 top up funding

07 April 2021

Aberdeen City Council is to provide the city’s taxi drivers who are current recipients of Taxi Fund support with an additional top up grant of £1000 each.

A total of £860,000 extra support for taxi and private hire drivers is being made available in Aberdeen City. The discretionary top up payment which will be paid automatically in the next fortnight and is in addition to the £1500 which has already been paid out to eligible licence holders.

With the restrictions on travel and reduction in footfall, taxi and private hire drivers in the city have faced significant challenges as direct result of the pandemic. The extra support recognises those challenges and aims to address some of the hardship encountered to date.

There is no need for drivers to reapply, as the council is contacting eligible drivers to arrange the top-up payments to be made into their nominated bank accounts.

The Scottish Government’s Taxi Driver and Private Hire Fund closed on March 25th, with Aberdeen City Council administering and disbursing £1,278,000 to date to drivers in the city. .

Aberdeen City Council has received a total of £6 million through the £120m Local Authorities Discretionary Fund. The Council allocated over £1.3m in the first phase, while the second phase remains open for other businesses that have not received other support since October and can evidence a loss of income linked to COVID-19 restrictions.

Discretionary Fund applications can still be made at: https://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/services/coronavirus-covid-19/covid-19-discretionary-business-fund