Sir - Dr Frances Kennett is to be congratulated on her resolve to put an end to a most unsatisfactory state of affairs. It cannot be right that the population of any urban area in a civilised society, is subjected to infestations of disease-carrying vermin. Of course Dr Kennett is right to persist in requiring the council to clear up the problem, since it is they, who are charged with the responsibility for vermin control.

The rat problem seems to have started when composting bins were introduced but thankfully, there is now a mesh that can be position at the bottom of the bin to prevent vermin from burrowing into the bins. The smells however remains and attracts vermin to the facility and the same problem applies to household rubbish bins.

No matter what you do with household leftovers, there will always be smells from decomposing food and the longer rubbish is left to stand, the worse it gets. Composting smells will always attract all sorts of things hoping for a morsel.

Apart from other concerns, many in the population find the overflowing bins unacceptable and the mounds of rubbish in various containers is clogging up space and disrupting people's environment.

Never will this policy of forcing the population to sort rubbish at source, work to best effect. Only when bespoke factory processing of rubbish comes into play, will the maximum recycling of useful materials come about.

Jean Fooks has for many years served the community well and whilst most accept the need for recycling and do their best to comply, some things remain unacceptable. Can this newspaper publish the names of individuals presiding over the two-weekly rubbish collection policy, so that the community knows who to write to.

Branko R Babic, Oxford