I do not think people should be allowed time off to smoke unless they are going to make up the time as past experience has shown me how much smoke breaks can be abused (Smoking breaks face council ban, Croydon Guardian, October 18).

Mervyn D'Cruze's suggestion of taking half an hour for lunch and using the other half an hour for smoke breaks sounds perfectly fair to me. I get paid to do a seven hour day and I work at least a seven hour day, which is entirely reasonable.

I would not expect the same pay for half an hour less work. If Taberner House smokers are effectively working half an hour less a day, but getting paid for their full hours, maybe a reduction in council tax is in order as we are not getting value for our money (if we ever were without the smoke-break debacle).

DAWN EDWARDS received by email