MR Cockerill's letter ('The dirty truth', October 7) is wrong on several counts.

At no time did the Labour council stop cleaning roads and grates, and road cleaning in residential areas was never halted to focus on the city centre.

The key Encams award involved looking at areas across the city and we still did well.

That said, I should acknowledge that we did not get the cleansing issues right, which was why we were taking measures in our last year of office to tackle the issue more successfully.

Councillor David Merrett,

Leader of the Labour Group,

White House Gardens,

Tadcaster Road,

York.

Updated: 12:08 Wednesday, October 22, 2003