Special taxi commissionaires wearing bright red hats were on hand to enforce tough new regulations at Eastbourne station.

After months of negotiation, Connex South Central signed a council-backed franchise deal with local private hire firm Sussex Cars to manage two ranks at the station on privately-owned land.

It's the first time a private hire cab firm has won the right to run ranks at a rail station anywhere in the UK.

Only drivers with a £411 permit are now allowed to pick up at the station, a lucrative source of business for cab drivers for more than 75 years.

Minutes after its launch, furious taxi drivers were ordered to leave the station's west side rank by British Transport Police.

The drivers, who each pay £20,000 for a taxi licence giving them the right to pick people up in the street, claim they should not have to pay the extra £411.

At Eastbourne and Country, the town's biggest employer of hackney taxi drivers, only one of around 130 drivers have bought a permit.

Chairman David Stone-Cox said: "Many of our drivers spend £40,000 setting up their businesses, £20,000 on the car and the same on the council plate.

"But what they have created at the town's station is a permit holders-only rank. My drivers do not see why should have to pay another £411. They feel the council has a duty to provide ranks at the town's station.

"The council, in its wisdom, has decided it is acceptable to have private hire cars masquerading as taxis. It's not good enough.

"My drivers will, I am sure, stay defiant."

One taxi driver said: "If we get moved on we will just come back again later."

And another, Barry Morris, 40, of Latimer Road, Eastbourne, said: "I feel I have been stitched up. I have a family to look after. I cannot afford the new permit."

At Sussex Cars, 104 drivers have purchased the permit, enough, Eastbourne Borough Council claims, to provide an effective cab service at the station's two ranks on the east and west side.

Commissionaires employed by Sussex Cars will patrol the ranks 24 hours a day. They will be able to ask drivers without permits to move on. If they refuse, only officers from the British Transport Police can order them to go.

Boss Mick Edwards said yesterday: "This is D-Day. Drivers have had ample opportunity to buy the permit."

At the station yesterday there were also claims that the commissionaires were illegally touting for business.

On several occasions, passengers leaving the station at the west side were asked if they wanted a taxi.

Norman Coleshaw, 77, an ex-cabbie, said he was approached and then directed towards a Sussex Cars cab.

He said: "I was asked if I wanted a taxi and then directed to a Sussex Cars taxi."

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