Have readers noticed that after a period of hot weather and no rain, some city centre streets now smell pretty bad?

Walking along Western Road and down Preston Street, I got many whiffs of animal and vegetable decay mixed with the scent of urine, human and animal (mainly rats, I guess).

If someone had been selling nosegays, I might have bought one.

In many cities, restaurant and cafe owners would wash the pavements outside their premises if the local authority didn't do it for them.

Not so in Preston Street, where it would now be a major task to get the grease off the pavement. Even heavy rain won't do it.

I was going to eat there but changed my mind. The whole place was just too yucky.

If we had a public health department, it could give a nudge to those restaurant and cafe keepers who are undermining their own trade.

I would be happy just to feel we were adequately protected from cholera, typhus and the plague.

-Trevor Pateman, Hove