A successful taxi marshal scheme to tackle booze-fuelled trouble in Walsall town centre and improve safety for drivers will not return because council bosses can’t find the cash, it emerged today.

Councillors had hoped to find enough money to fund the return of the scheme, which uses taxi marshals to get late-night revellers off the streets and back home sooner. The scheme, which ran on Friday and Saturday nights, had only been re-introduced last Christmas.

The service which aimed to ensure people enjoying an evening out got home safely and quickly while curbing anti-social behaviour. It finished in March after a grant to run it came to an end.

And now hopes of it being re-launched as a permanent fixture have been dashed by Walsall Council.

Council chiefs said although ways of keeping the initiative going had been explored, they do not have the money to consider it again becoming a permanent fixture.

John Beavon, trading standards manager at Walsall Council, said: “During the time the taxi marshal service has been running we have looked at a range of methods of operating the scheme.

“We have had to make some difficult funding decisions to maintain services to the most vulnerable members of our communities and at the present time the service is unsustainable in the long term.”

The scheme operated from taxi ranks in Lichfield Street and Bradford Place on weekends. It was first trialled in 2007, and was brought back last December for the Christmas period.

It was hailed a success after the number of violent passengers catching a lift was slashed according to a report in 2007.