Sir - It has finally been clearly stated (Letters, December 7) that city council policy is now decided by an "ecological imperative", and not by the electorate at all. I do wonder, though, why they chose a Green county councillor as their spokesman, and whether she is really speaking on behalf of the Labour Party, as well as the Greens and the Lib Dems.

More importantly, I don't see it as an ecological imperative that dustmen should so often leave wheelie bins blocking access, and I don't see it as an ecological imperative that the urban environment should be ruined with piles of rubbish and an ever-increasing number of bins and boxes.

It's merely economy that recommends collecting too infrequently in areas which produce a lot of rubbish and have small front gardens or none at all, a lack of money which is not immediately evident to a foreigner contemplating the Yuletide queues.

Let us hope that sanity will return, and a proper civilised service be restored sometime next year to those areas which so much need it, perhaps that "tweaking at the edges" which even Deborah Glass-Woodin and The Planet will allow us.

Roger Moreton, East Oxford