SEVERAL weeks ago Bolton Council in their wisdom decided that the bridge on Newport Street is now in need of repair and is weak.

The bridge has now been turned into a bus lane, i.e. buses taxis cycles.

I'm a private hire driver and our vehicles are not classed as taxis, but we all pay the same amount of fees to the council as black cabs do. The point I'm making is that on Tuesday, June 26, Bolton Licensing Officers, were stood at the bridge and not allowing private hire cars to drive over the bridge, traffic was travelling along as normal and no attempt was made to stop them, the only drivers stopped and told they could not go across the bridge were private hire cars.

Customers are not very happy about this situation because it costs them more in fares. I think the council and the licensing should get their fingers out and start to put things into perspective. You read in the newspapers regularly of the council telling people that, when you get into a private hire car late at night which you have not booked with the operator, the car and yourself are not insured. The council know when and where these illegal pick-ups are happening but turn a blind eye to it. Perhaps it will upset their own nights out to catch these drivers?

So, my point is, leave the private hire drivers who do the job correctly, and are fully insured, alone and let them get on with it and stop being so petty. If the bridge is in so bad a state of repair, I think the council should close the road completely, so whoever at the council decided that a bus must be much lighter in weight than a car must have been top of his class in maths -- at Woodside School!

Angry private hire driver

(name and address supplied)