Sir - I agree with Tim Hamer (Letters, April 20). If only the council members would enter into a reasonable dialogue with the residents instead of just dictating.

Surely we are all trying to reach the same goals, a clean city and an increase in recycling. Instead of getting people on board the council have used such language as, stick and carrot, punishment and breaking the rules.

I am neither a donkey nor a child that has to be punished. The council will not acknowledge that one scheme does not fit all.

Residents with small front gardens really should not have unsightly wheelie bins inches from their front windows. Councillors have agreed that plastic bags are attractive to vermin, so why make residents store refuse in them for two weeks making them even more attractive with the putrid smell from rotting waste.

Opponents of this scheme are neither anti-recycling, nor lazy, as some members of the council would have us believe. It is a fact that the council has done nothing for years to really encourage recycling and now panic measures have been introduced to increase the figures.

We want our clean and beautiful city back. Give us an improved community recycling programme and a return to weekly collections.

Eric Murray, Osney