Taxis Associated of Bendigo Co-Operative Limited manager Colin Wells said three of the organisation’s eight wheelchair-accessible taxis were approaching the end of their life and it could not afford to replace them and the move was an effort to preserve the life of the remaining vehicles.

“One of our vans has blown a motor so that’s 12,000 odd dollars to repair it,” he said.

“You wouldn’t bother putting a new motor in a vehicle that’s got 750,000 kilometres on it when the gear box and everything else in it is exhausted. You’re better off putting that money into a new van but we don’t have the wherewithal to find the $80,000 that we’d need to get another van on the road.”

Mr Wells said the association’s hand had been forced by government moves to deregulate the industry, which had resulted in revenue from sedan taxis was no longer sufficient to subside the wheelchair fleet, which ran at a loss.

“The whole crux of is it we are being repeatedly and consistently told by the government that ours is not an essential service, we are merely commercial operators, that’s all we are, so they are saying if a service is not viable then stop providing it,” he said.

“I believe they are 100 per cent wrong, they could not be more wrong, particularly with the wheelchair fleet.”

Mr Wells said the government’s changes also meant the value of the association’s taxi fleet as an asset had been reduced, leaving it unable to borrow against it to pay for repairs to the wheelchair-accessible vans.

“If you can imagine we had $900,000 worth of licences to run our wheelchair fleet, we’re going to get a $200,000 payment for that, so therefore, when we go to the bank, the bank will see we made a $700,000 loss last year with the right down of the asset value so of course no one, in that situation, in their right mind is going to lend for that,” he said.

“They’ve taken away our ability to borrow, they’ve taken away our ability to cross-subsidise, so there’s nothing left but to shut services down and go off the road.”

Mr Wells said if the wheelchair service was to become a purely commercial operation it would inevitably lead to higher prices.

“The government has been warned since August 2015 if they got the deregulation incorrect it would have a massive impact on the wheelchair fleet,” he said.

“They keep telling me that commercial forces will dictate that someone will come in and replace us.

“Well they won’t – or the only only way they will is if they double the price.”

More to come.