Борьба за безопасность: как Гидеон Фигель добился регулирования рынка миникабов в Лондоне

My late father Gideon Fiegel, who was a Brent Councillor from 1986 to 2005, was never afraid of a battle, whether it was taking on the UK government or powerful businessmen like Alan Sugar. In both cases he won. In 1992, he formed a committee to represent shareholders in Sir Alan Sugar's company Amstrad. Sugar was at the time pressurising shareholders into selling their shares back to him at below the market value so he could privatise the company. My father wrote a letter to The Times in which he complained at Sugar’s “attempt to borrow our own money from the company and dispossess us of its assets.” He invited others in a similar position to join him and almost immediately found himself inundated with support. He was nominated as Chairman of the National Action Group and when the case went to court, he won the case against Sugar on their behalf. As champion of the ‘little man’, for a brief moment, my father became a national celebrity, taking part in a TV debate against Sugar, as well as being interviewed by the likes of The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Mail and Express. However, his most significant achievement was in lobbying the government to legislate London’s mini cab industry which up until that point, was entirely unregulated. Read more Caroline Dubois retains world titles and reignites Baumgardner feud District-heating network plans lodged for Kilburn Park Road As the owner of Cavendish Car Service, a mini cab and limousine hire company, he was concerned at the industry’s lack of regulation and in 1988, after contacting other fellow hire car company owners, he created the LPHCA (The London Private Car Hire Association). Over the course of several years, he set up meetings and lobbied politicians, the PHV (mini-cab) trade, the police, local authorities and safety groups, including the Suzy Lamplugh Trust. The Trust’s founder, the late Diana Lamplugh OBE, had taken an interest in the lack of regulation in London because an early line of police enquiry regarding her missing daughter (estate agent Suzy Lamplugh) was that she had been abducted by someone posing as a minicab driver, something that regularly happened because of the lack of regulation in London. Finally, in 1998 the government passed the Private Hire Vehicles (London) Act, meaning that the minicab industry would be subject to the same regulations as black taxis and that the public could travel safely, regardless of which type of taxi they chose to use. “Without Gideon Fiegel’s vision, tenacity and backing,” says Stephen Wright MBE, Chairman LPHCA, “I doubt if London’s PHV (Private Hire Vehicle aka mini-cab) Industry and the travelling public would be as safe as it is today because there are now just a handful of incidents in pre-booked PHVs in the capital.” My father was born in Berlin 1927 to a Jewish family but moved first to Switzerland and then, being unable to return to Germany, to Palestine in the late 1930s. At the age of 17, he volunteered for the British Army’s Jewish Brigade and served in the final years of WWII. He moved to London in the 1950s, studying economics and becoming Chair of the Institute of Transport Administration, now the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport. In 1995 he was awarded the Freedom of the City of London. From 1996 till 2002, he was Chair of the Board of the Middlesex ITEC charity, which provides community training in IT, science and maths and also served as a Governor of Wembley High Technology College from 2012 to 2016. Gideon passed away peacefully on Monday August 24th, only five months short of his 100th birthday. Stephen Wright MBE paid tribute to him, saying: “Gideon’s unwavering dedication to effecting positive change for his local community and the wider impact of his selfless commitment to duty and his work to improve the safety of Londoners, means he will be very much missed, but not forgotten.”