Readers at the Jubilee Library will not be surprised to find a taxi driver was clamped and charged £125 in Jubilee Street while collecting a customer's take-away (The Argus, April 4).

True, fines for overdue books have not yet reached that level, although it is increasingly expensive to obtain from elsewhere the many books no longer stocked by the Brighton and Hove library service.

What the taxi driver's experience brings to mind immediately is the terrible morning last year when Brighton and Hove City Council, led by Ken Bodfish, ejected the Friends of Hove Library from Jubilee Square for running a very popular petition to bring back Biography and Crime Fiction sections.

This ejection was carried out because - in a grim blow to civil liberties - the Square and Street are in fact now private property.

I trust councillors will look closely at the terms of this iniqutious PFI agreement, now, apparently, run by a company called, if you please, Investors In The Community.

To make matters even more galling, East Sussex County Council willingly accepted £56,000 raised by the Friends of Lewes Library to enhance library services (The Argus, April 6).

In contrast, when I offered to run a national appeal for the lift in Hove's Carnegie Library, I was turned down by the council.

This could have been wonderful, a real community initiative - but now the lift installed there is mediocre: Readers will have to keep their finger on the button all the time when using it. Things could have been so much better.

-Christopher Hawtree, Hove