MADAM, I refer to Catherine Sadler's letter of May 30, regarding the unfortunate cutting down of a green lane verge full of wildlife just before Jubilee celebrations, as part of operation 'tidy up'.

Although, in this case, the council admitted their mistake, it reminds one that tidiness is not always an asset if we want to prevent our rapidly diminishing wildlife from going into further decline throughout our county.

With present day intensive and chemical farming methods, our birds, flowers and butterflies are pushed out to the peripheries of the land, surviving in whatever hedges are left and whatever road verges are not 'over' tidied, and it follows that their numbers must be declining.

If each person in the county were to vote on whether they preferred carpet-like verges with a decline of wildlife, or the other way round, I wonder what the result would be?

Perhaps Catherine Sadler's reminder of the Prince of Wales' Healing Wildlife Garden at Chelsea might indicate that, should royalty have been touring our county during the Jubilee week, or at any other time, they might vote for a flourish of rich wildlife along their route, as against monotonous wide and flat and sterile verge carpets.

Ultimately let us hope and pray that our Governments will implement schemes on our land that will enhance and increase its ecological richness. Meanwhile each one of us can do our little bit towards that end, bearing in mind what havoc can be wrought by the over-use of pesticides, herbicides and mechanical cutters.

M MORLEY,

Rocky Lane,

Shobdon,

Leominster.