IS there anyone out there, I wonder, who can tell me how it is that the local authority, the Swindon Borough Council, can get away with 'commercial', for want of a better word, discrimination?

I've been a Private Hire driver in Swindon for over ten years now and I, like all of my working colleagues on Private Hire fleets or in Hackney Carriages, welcomed the recent decision by the council to, at long last and after much campaigning, open bus lanes to Hackneys and Private Hire vehicles alike. A sensible conclusion to a very long debate that can only benefit users and practitioners and put Swindon on a par with numerous other local authorities such as Bristol and Bath, where we've been free to use the bus lanes without fear of recrimination for, well, for goodness knows how long. But hang on - there's a sting in the tail.

I like to think that I, like 99 per cent of the aforementioned drivers, am decent, honest and hardworking and conscientious about providing an efficient and good quality public service to the Swindon community. I'm not daft enough to think that taxi and private hire drivers generally don't carry a certain amount of baggage but I do think that, thanks to the local drivers and operators standards have improved over the last ten years. Most of us do have standards. We spend a lot of money on our vehicles, keeping them clean, making them comfortable and trying to ensure that all of our customers are happy to travel in them. To make a reasonable living we have to work probably longer than the average working week. Not a problem - we're self-employed - the choice is ours. We invest a lot of our income back into our businesses and, despite ever increasing costs, resist price increases for as long as we can. I'm not complaining - again we're self employed and the choice is ours.

But now the local authority is insisting on bringing our standards down to their level. They have magnanimously granted us the freedom to drive in designated bus lanes but it is conditional. I can only use the bus lanes in Swindon if I attach to my vehicle their absolutely hideous sticker, stating that I can do what it says on my car. I pay the council £148 every year for a Private Hire Vehicle MOT and my plate, stating that I am a licensed Private Hire Vehicle. I have to display two additional signs, easily visible, stating that I have to be pre-booked. I have to display signs on my vehicle stating with which operator I am registered. In all the time I've driven a Private Hire Vehicle I have only once or twice been advised by my customer that they "didn't know you were a taxi - where's your sign?" And now I'm told that for an extra ten pounds I can make the same point yet again and at the same time devalue and demean my car with their horrible sign. Do they know anything about aesthetics? Is there anybody anywhere in the council offices with some degree of sophistication, some idea of what looks nice? If pushed, I'd happily pay an extra tenner every year to use the bus lane but an extra tenner to make my nice car look naff just doesn't seem right.

And one last question. If Swindon Hackney Carriages are going to use the same bus lanes as me with the same frequency how come I have to pay for and display that ridiculous sticker and they don’t? Now that's not only arbitrary, it's discrimination, isn't it?

GEORGE CASEY Grosvenor Road Swindon