Sir – I have long wanted to write to say how absurd it is that students or rather their landlords don’t pay council tax.

If the Government wanted to do one fair thing and this would hugely enhance council income in towns like Oxford, they should charge students council tax.

The students in my street create more work for the council than any residents — mainly because of their rubbish.

And can you see those landlords paying the £35 for green rubbish? Well, they won’t have to — not that most of them ever clean up rat-infested, student house gardens.

So my solution to all council problems and therefore requiring no necessity for all the horrendous cuts they are making to citizens’ services (let alone new stealth taxes on residents like the brown wheelie bins) is to pressurise the Government into making student houses pay council tax.

Students vote in council elections — but surely it should be ‘no representation, without taxation ‘ in their case.

Penelope Newsome, East Oxford