THE letter from Labour councillor Kevin Small on August 10 headlined "people should break reliance on the car" has finally convinced me that he really does live in cloud cuckoo land.

He tells us that the green transport element to the Great Western Hospital's planning permission was deliberately done to help reduce the reliance of the car in our everyday life.

He then says that in London the use of public transport is an everyday thing and people do not think twice about going to the hospital by bus or tube.

There are a number of major factors that have escaped Coun Small's reasoning so I suggest that he considers the following facts:

l London is the capital city of England with a population of eight million people

l It has an integrated transport system which is supported by all of the London Boroughs and Transport for London

l In London you can travel by bus, tube trains, overground trains and the Docklands Light Railway

l London Transport has a policy of ensuring that every residence in London is no further than 200 metres from a bus stop

l The bus services in London run every ten or 15 minutes

l There are night buses in London

l The tube trains in London run frequently until midnight

l Sunday services on London's public transport system are almost as good as week days

l Pensioners in London are entitled to a free travel pass that allows them to use travel zones one to six

l London has huge numbers of tourists that use and help fund public transport

Now consider public transport in Swindon:

l The population is less than 200,000, so demand for public transport is a fraction of that in London

l Swindon has a second or third rate bus service and one railway station. There is no such thing as an integrated transport system

l The most frequent bus services in Swindon are the park and rides, which run without passengers for most of the day

l There is often a lengthy walk before you even get to a bus stop in Swindon

l Bus services are infrequent and unreliable in Swindon

l On many routes in Swindon the frequency of bus services has been reduced and some routes have been cancelled

l In many areas of Swindon bus services are almost non-existent during evenings and on Sundays

l Thanks to Coun Small and his penny pinching colleagues old age pensioners have abysmal travel concessions in Swindon

Coun Small asks that the next time you need to go to the hospital think about going by bus. Even if you don't, he says that at least the thought of going by public transport will have been in your head.

So let's all imagine that we have just caught that imaginary bus that is taking us all the way to cloud cuckoo land.

We can then imagine that we are using Swindon's perfect integrated public transport system that exists only inside the mind of Coun Small.

E FELL

Wroughton