Cabbies working the rank at the station had planned to refuse to pick up fares on Monday in the latest round of action against plans to cut the numbers on the station's rank.

However, train company Virgin Trains has now offered them a meeting on Friday to try to settle the dispute.

Drivers' spokesman Parvesh Vatcha, 41, of Broadgate, said the decision was "a show of goodwill", but warned that the strike would go ahead next Monday if a compromise could not be reached.

He said: "We do not want to cause our customers disruption unless we absolutely have to, so our members have agreed to talk to Virgin.

"We hope that everyone can meet in the middle and come up with some kind of compromise; if we cannot then the strike goes ahead next Monday.

"I just hope that Virgin has not just arranged this to keep us quiet for a week because a lot of our members are very worried."

He said that representatives of the Preston Hackney Carriage Association, the Bolton, Bury and Preston Hackney Carriage Association and the police would also be at Friday's meeting.

The row started earlier this month when Virgin announced it would enforce restrictions at its passenger drop-off zone at the front of the station to just 12 cabs, with the current area being taken up with the building of a new multi-storey car park.

Work is due to start on the car park on Monday, June 9.

A Virgin Trains spokesman said it was "happy" to talk with the drivers, but warned it would not be changing its plans.

He said: "There has always been a 12-cab limit on the rank, it has just not been correctly enforced."

Furious hackney carriage drivers brought Preston city centre to a standstill last week in the bitter row over railway parking allocation.

Commuters were left stranded at Preston Railway Station on Tuesday afternoon as cabbies refused to pick up any fares before staging a "rolling protest" through the city centre.

>> Cab drivers bring city to standstill

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