Sir, Most of your readers must have been surprised to see a letter (June 9) that actually defends the dreadful open-topped tourist buses that grind constantly around the streets of central Oxford.

Those of us who live and work in the city centre are relentlessly exposed to obstruction, noise and fumes from these monstrosities, and any measures to regulate their numbers and limit their exhaust emissions that may be in place are clearly inadequate and ineffective.

The theory that these intruders do us a service by restricting the flow of traffic through our streets is risible; rather like suggesting that the health hazard from their belching exhausts will encourage us to give up smoking.

And we don't need tour buses in Oxford; it is a small city and the tourists could easily walk around, as they used to.

F. Taylor, Oxford