IN reply to D Lee's letter (LET, May 3) I am quite aware of the criteria needed to be met by private landlords when renting out properties.

You will always get some landlords flouting the laws and these are the ones I was writing about.

Unfortunately it is these landlords who give decent landlords who play by the book a bad name.

I think it is essential that we bring in licensing of private landlords and the fee for these licences could reflect the number of properties each landlord has i.e the more properties the higher the licence fee.

This way we may then and only then root out the unscrupulous landlords.

H HAMER, Lowther Place, Blackburn.