It is time to get a bit of proportion into the seagull debate.

I don't know whether our seagulls are now more numerous or more aggressive but I do know that I have lived in the same house for the past 36 years and the same things have been said every summer during the breeding season.

With regard to the calls for Brighton and Hove City Council to "do something", I wonder just what it is supposed to do?

Culling or poisoning seagulls is not only illegal and morally wrong but completely impractical.

To wipe out their "learned" behaviour, as Paul Brazier suggests (Letters, August 16), would mean killing off every single one.

Just think through the implications of that. We need proper research about how urban gulls live. There is no quick fix.

George Marshall (Letters, August 14) is right to say food is an issue but how do they get it? It is humans who leave the dreaded plastic bags out on the streets.

And when the council tries to solve that problem with large bins it gets heavily criticised in these columns.

I wonder, when Mr Brazier puts his bags out, if they get holed?

It is worth repeating that bags should only go out just before the refuse collectors call and what about a bin with a lid, Mr Brazier?

As for the complaints about noise we live by the seaside and the seagulls were here first. In a world afflicted by conflict and environmental degradation, are there not more worthy things to get het up about?

-Joyce Edmond-Smith, convenor, Sustainability Commission, Brighton and Hove City Council