The increasingly brazen onstreet sex trade in Cowley Road is a problem that needs several solutions but only one result: returning the neighbourhood to the families who live there.

This is not a time to moralise about the rights and wrongs of these women selling themselves to strangers.

The majority of these women will have chronic dependencies on class A drugs. Crack and heroin are the pimps they work to pay.

They are trapped and they need help.

But the overarching aim of what the authorities must do is to concentrate on fixing this for the families who are now seeing what was once a hidden trade and picking up the detritus of it.

It is not a case of being liberal or reactionary - some will say the women are victims and need help, others will call to simply sweep them from the streets.

Both are right in their outlook. The only way to get them off the streets is to offer help, but equally they need to know if that offer is spurned, then the police will follow it with full enforcement of the law.

Help the women definitely but let's ensure the focus remains on giving the families the neighbourhood they deserve.