WE have in Poole and Bournemouth, 19 years since the Environmental Protection Act, and five years since the Clean Neighbourhoods Act, still to effect a full and effective solution to the street cleaning problem.

I was therefore very struck by Lib Dem leaders from Kingston-upon-Thames at the Lib Dem conference in Bournemouth announcing that they had reintroduce street cleaners with cart and broom and their streets throughout their borough were far cleaner and litter free.

I have personally long held that this traditional method of street cleaning, along with early morning borough-wide machine clean-up, is the only way to keep busy areas clean – a matter of a cleaners taking pride in their particular precinct area.

I would therefore expect Kingston to be doing well in the national cleanliness league tables but have in fact been very surprised, and shocked, to see that they come out in the audit table for 2007/08 as the 11th dirtiest borough in England – out of 350 councils.

And that is twice as dirty and littered as Poole – 25 per cent uncleared litter as against 12 per cent.

JEFF WILLIAMS, Jubilee Road, Poole