A CAMPAIGNER and business owner has exposed four four councils in the region - including St Helens - for issuing licences for taxis fitted with illegal unmarked and unsafe part worn tyres.

The discovery raises questions of passenger safety and how thorough and safe the taxi compliance and licensing procedure is.

John Stone, owner of Stone Tyres on College Street, and founder of the Independent Tyre Fitters Alliance, purchased a Skoda Octavia and fitted it with four illegal part worn tyres and submitted the vehicle to St Helens, Liverpool, Wirral and Sefton council-approved test centres for a taxi compliance test.

Each council’s approved test centre passed the vehicle as safe, despite part worn tyres dating from 1999, 2001 and 2003 being fitted on the taxi.

Also, the fourth tyre was an illegal part worn winter tyre, imported from Germany some 10 years ago. No tyres were marked as ‘Part Worn’, as they should be by law, next to the BS or ECE approval mark.

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John said: “This lack of care from our local councils is appalling and raises serious questions over taxi passenger safety in the North West and indeed across the United Kingdom.

“Part worn tyres are not safe, yet some councils are awarding licences to vehicles running on illegal and potentially unsafe tyres – it is a disgrace and the licensing of vehicles running illegal part worn tyres needs to be stopped now.

“Full credit to St Helens Council as when I approached them with my findings they took the issue with great seriousness and decided there and then that this wouldn’t be allowed to happen again.

"I’m pleased to say that on the back of this campaign St Helens MBC has already agreed to ban the use of part worn tyres on all licensed vehicles.

"They should be applauded for such a pragmatic and positive response, which ensures the safety of the public.”

John hopes other councils will follow suit to only allow safe new tyres to be used on vehicles transporting the general public.

The Motor Vehicle Tyres (Safety) Regulations 1994 govern the sale of part-worn tyres, but these are rarely being adhered to, allowing unsafe and illegal tyres to flood the UK’s part worn tyre market. The National

Tyre Distributors Association (NTDA) which represents national and independent tyre distributors across the UK, recently reiterated its call for an outright ban on part worn tyres due to safety concerns.

St Helens Council's cabinet member for community safety Jeanie Bell said: "I want to thank John and the campaign team for highlighting that we have this issue in St Helens.

"It's not something we would have wanted to happen and it's disappointing, but it has highlighted a much bigger concern and one we must take seriously."

St Helens Star:

Cllr Jeanie Bell

She added: "We want to work together with John and his team and we'll be backing the Ban Part Worn Tyres and the TYRED campaigns going forward. Our drivers licensed in St Helens are fantastic.

"They have always gone the extra mile to achieve our Gold Standard and I know they will welcome and support any drive to raise standards and safety further for residents and visitors to our our borough."