Your article about the proposed taxi-tokens' missed one very key point: the debate at the South Glos Council Meeting on November 21 revolved entirely around whether it was sensible to start committing large sums of money, at this time, when we have no information yet from the Government as to how much they will be allocating to us for next year, and no idea whether we shall even have the money.

The Conservatives claim they have a mandate' to introduce these tokens but that doesn't mean the rest of us councillors have to just throw up our hands and let them be irresponsible with public money. Until we know that we can afford it, and more importantly that we have discussed the best way to provide this help that a small group of residents actually need, then it would be profligate in the extreme to go ahead and spend £500,000, this year, and to commit the same amount of spending in future years. We cannot decide on that level of spending in a vacuum.

The prediction is that the Government is going to be less generous' this year and that the Council Tax will have to go up, yet again, but there are still lots of budget questions to answer, before we get to the rights and wrongs of taxi-tokens'.

Yes the discussion needs to start, but the right time to decide is when we have all the financial facts, and have had a chance to discuss the budget choices with residents, not before.

Cllr Peter Tyzack Liberal Democrat Pilning & Severn Beach