Francis Muñoz: "Benidorm triples the taxi license ratio required by law"

Benidorm City Councilor for Mobility, Francis Muñoz, has responded to the press release issued today by the Socialist Party, whose spokesperson, Cristina Escoda, has accused the local government of failing to address the demands of the taxi sector. Muñoz denied the Socialist councillor's criticism and stated that Benidorm currently "triples the taxi license ratio established by the law regulating the sector."

In this regard, the Mobility Councilor explained that current legislation is based on population criteria when establishing the number of licenses in a town. Thus, one license is granted for every thousand inhabitants. "In the case of Benidorm, our population is approximately 74,600, so we are entitled to 74 licenses. However, the current number of licenses in the city is 232, which means we are triple the number we are entitled to," he stated, based on that number of licenses, "we have enough to fit a population of 232,000."

Muñoz clarified that the city has a higher number than required by law "due to Benidorm's exceptional status as a tourist municipality, which has to support a floating population far higher than the registered population, as previously acknowledged by the authorities responsible for granting licenses."

The Mobility Councilor also clarified that "before Law 13/2017, regulating the taxi sector, came into force, the PSOE municipal government, of which Ms Cristina Escoda was a member, approved a regulation limiting the granting of new licenses as long as the population did not exceed 78,750." "It turns out that we haven't yet reached that population figure in Benidorm, and the Socialist spokesperson, incomprehensibly, has changed her mind and is now demanding licenses that she had no intention of granting before," the councillor added.

Francis Muñoz also wanted to make it clear that in 2017, when the law came into force, "the Botanic governed the Generalitat," and when the local regulations came into force, "the PSOE did so in Benidorm."

The councillor also denied that they are ignoring the taxi drivers' demands and failing to serve them. He told the Socialist spokesperson that "we have already met with the employees and will do so again on the 20th to inform them of what we discussed in a meeting held this week with the Director General of Transport and Logistics on this matter."

Finally, the Minister of Mobility announced that this week, "we have agreed with the sector to implement the free service shift, which means having 200 taxis on the streets at any given time of day, in addition to increasing the number of stops with the highest demand and reducing queues and waiting times."