SIR - In response to Martin Staines' recent letter asking "has anybody noticed how Perdiswell Park, the green and open space of a few years ago, gradually became a fence and footpath nightmare?" the answer is most emphatically yes.

As someone who has lived in Worcester for more than 50 years, and played football as a youth at Perdiswell, I can see only too well these changes. It is an absolute disgrace what the city council has done to Perdiswell in destroying what was a green and pleasant land.

This is not just my view but that of everyone I speak to as I walk Perdiswell every day. No longer do I see herons, owls, kingfishers, woodpeckers, foxes, badgers or even rabbits, because Worcester City council has destroyed their natural habitats.

The latest incident of vandalism, carried out recently, was not done by children, but the city council, in the felling of a number of well-established, healthy, evergreen trees that lined the edge of the car park.

They have also ruined the area used by footballers. The ground, which provided adequate football pitches for many years, has been at great expense ploughed up, covered in imported soil, seeded, ploughed up again, reseeded and now it would appear is quite unusable.

Officers of Worcester City parks department must think the general public are fools when they put up fencing several hundred metres long and tack signs to the fencing stating "rabbit fencing to protect sapling trees."

The purpose of the fencing is blatantly obvious - it's to keep people off the golf course. Hundreds more saplings have been planted not protected by fencing.

We are all aware of the message being given out by the city council, together with the private company that manages Perdiswell Leisure Centre and 80 per cent of the park, which is now a golf course. This message is "if you don't play golf keep off Perdiswell." Golf at Perdiswell provided the public's safety is not at risk. Live and let live, but be aware there are many golf courses in Worcester, but only one Perdiswell Park for all the people of Worcester to enjoy.

As far as Perdiswell is concerned, the city council has failed miserably in its mission statement "making Worcester a better place to live, work and visit". Take down the barriers, open up the footpaths and allow people to get to work, school and enjoy visiting Perdiswell.

PETER YEOMANS,

Worcester.