The city's cab drivers were due to meet Virgin Trains over plans to limit the rank at the train station to just 12 taxis, despite selling 108 annual permits for nearly £300 each.

Hackney cab drivers have warned that they will strike again on Monday if they do not get the answers they want – and have warned the action could escalate to other ranks.

A go-slow protest a fortnight ago left the city in chaos.

But a top city centre traffic officer, PC Dave Taylor, said he feared "little progress" would be made at the meeting.

PC Taylor said: "You have 100 cabs who have paid to work from the station and at any one time you will see up to 90 of them at that location.

"If you are going to reduce that to a maximum of 12, where are the rest of the cabs going to go? All they can do is drive round and round.
"Little progress is being made, everyone seems to be brushing the problem aside, and yet we are going to left with cabs driving around the city because they have nowhere to go."

A Virgin Trains spokesman said it had showed "good will" in calling the meeting and reiterated its claim that the company was only enforcing restrictions which have always existed by limiting the number of cabs.

But, Preston Hackney Carriage Association secretary claims the latest contract issued in November includes no limits on the amount of cabs.

He said: "What Virgin Trains are saying is 'we have taken your train fare and we do not care what happens when you get off', because there is no escaping the fact a rank of 12 cabs falls woefully short of that required at a station like Preston."

Chairman Charlie Oakes, of the Bolton, Bury and Preston Hackney Carriage Association, said arrangements were in place to hold a strike on Monday.

He said: "If it happens, it could escalate into the city centre and we might even look at withdrawing services on a Friday and Saturday night."

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