IT is good to know that the rivalry between Reading and Swindon over city status does not mean we hate each other.

Not so long ago, thanks to insults from Reading MP Martin Salter for which he had to apologise, outsiders could have been excused for thinking vitriol was flowing down the M4.

Today, however, we learn there is a spirit of friendly co-operation between our local authority and theirs. That means nothing but good for both towns.

The dozen council officers who visited the Berkshire town to talk to their Reading counterparts about its town centre redevelopment came back with a store of useful ideas. It might do Swindon no harm at all to adopt and adapt some of them.

It is pretty clear that our town can also teach its neighbour a thing or two. There are, after all, many good things about Swindon of which we can be rightly proud. Among them is its "percent for art'' policy.

We believe the animosity that apparently existed between Reading and Swindon in 1999 might have damaged both towns' chances in the race to be named a city for the millennium.

It seems that the barbed comments which flowed between the two towns were not representative of the way we truly feel about each other.

Hopefully our individual campaigns to be named a city will proceed in the same friendly spirit which was shown in the meeting between our council officers and theirs.