Taxi fares in Wirral are set to rise after union plans were voted through last night.

A rise of just over 3% was approved by Wirral Council’s licensing committee despite a petition signed by 51 taxi drivers objecting to the rate rise.

After last night’s vote, the fare increase will come in from March unless it is thrown out by the council’s cabinet.

A normal 10-mile journey on the day rate will cost £19.00 under the proposal, up from £18.40.

The same journey on the night rate – from 10pm-6am – will cost £24.20, 80p more than the current rate.

Those against the proposal said a rate rise would see black cabs lose out on trade to private hire vehicles.

One letter sent to the council, who would not give the person’s name, read: “I think that a further increase, no matter how small, is not in the best interest of the trade in general.

“We are slowly losing more and more customers to the private hire sector and this increase will only compound the problem.”

Another taxi driver argued more members of Unite the Union, which represents Wirral’s hackney carriage drivers, should have been involved in making the proposal.

The letter read: “This proposal is again from a small minority of union members, who attended a meeting and voted for this proposal.

“I am led to believe that there was less than 10 people present at the meeting and cannot understand why as a member of the trade myself that this can be put forward without all members being balloted.”

Derek Cummins, chair of Unite’s Wirral taxi branch, said every member had the opportunity to go to the meeting and it was their choice whether to turn up or not.

He added that for the last 30 years he has seen drivers protest every time a rate rise was proposed.

But Mr Cummins said that if fares were frozen every time someone objected “we’d still be running around at 50p a mile.”

For Mr Cummins, further fare freezes are not “economically possible.”