Is it just me, or is every non-shop proprietor, non-restaurateur, non-publican and non-hostler failing to understand the purpose of an A-board (or A-boards plural, as the street of Bath are bristling with the things)? It is causing A- board fatigue all round.

I can't quite grasp how a four-feet tall trip-hazard can tell me more about a shop than a 12 x 25-feet window display. I can't 'ken' why a pub needs multiple pavement hazards telling me it sells "fine wines and ales". It's a pub! What else are they going to sell? OK, food. But in these pub-hostile times (from both the taxman and the breweries), it's a given that landlords must serve food.

I've never wandered past a cake shop and thought to myself, "I wonder what they sell in there" – and even if I did, I could always look through the window. Generally speaking, cake shops have cakes in the window – it's a sort-of clue.

Cobblers might be justified with street side advertising, because they do more than just repair shoes. However, everyone knows that cobblers do the entirely disparate tasks of key cutting, trophy selling and electric watch battery replacement – presumably, banging a hammer on a last all day is good training for the delicate process of dismantling digital watches. So, even cobblers' A- boards are redundant.

The only useful information on an A-board is who to sue when you trip over it, or who will pay your funeral expenses when you're killed stepping into the road to avoid it.

A charge of £100 an A-board is cheap. It should be £1,000-plus per A- board, and the proprietors who post them should be grassed up to their insurers, so that the premiums can properly reflect the extra risk involved.

VINCE BAUGHAN Oldfield Park,Bath

I refer to Mr Alex Schlesinger's letter published April 21.

Three years ago, it was suggested to me by B&NES' enforcement officers that it was not legally possible to compel shopkeepers to abide by the council's own guidelines on A-boards and that the best that could be done was to try to use persuasion. I was also told that A-board policy was under review and that the council would eventually establish legally enforceable guidelines.

As a result of these representations by council officials, I only made one further complaint, about a year ago, this time to the helpline and it concerned the forest of A-boards which had been building up at the upper end of Union Street.

Subsequent action by the council's enforcement officers had a swift, beneficial effect but three days later the forest had been re-established. It was thus clear to me that any further complaints would be futile until the council had come to a decision on a legally enforceable A-board policy.

As a consequence of my experiences, I have to wonder how many other Bathonians were similarly discouraged from making complaints and that, from this, it should come as no surprise to learn that B&NES had only received only seven complaints about A-boards in the past year.

MALCOLM WARD Caroline Place, Bath