I HAVE had various very enjoyable visits to Sankey Valley Park this year, including: taking a party from the Aughton and Ormskirk U3A bird group up to and around Carr Mill in the spring.

I also took the Liverpool Botanical Society up to Carr Mill from Blackbrook and, in summer, from Blackbrook to Havannah Flashes and back.

During all of these visits the rangers have been incredibly helpful, as well as being extremely knowledgeable about the valley and its wildlife.

So, it has been very dispiriting to see the service being whittled down and down.

Back in 1979 I was taken on the the council as the first ranger and worked up hours and hours or overtime (that I never had time to take off) visiting all types of clubs and societies in all parts of the borough telling them about then new, Sankey Valley Park with its amazing diversity of industrial heritage and wildlife.

I also visited many schools and led many classes of local children out into the valley to experience the wildlife handson.

I know that the foundation laid all those years ago has continued to be built up by succeeding rangers over the decades who have amassed a huge local capital of knowledge and experience about this large and superbly diverse area of cultural and natural heritage that has been so important to the development of St Helens.

I realise that times are hard, in terms of funding, and stark decisions have to be made but strongly feel that the council cuts to the rangers in Sankey Valley Park have gone as far as they possibly can do without destroying the service totally and losing so much of local value. But not only local value, the heritage and wildlife assets also attract people from neighbouring boroughs, as instanced above, and if the canal can be restored then the value of the rangers will increase even more as the attraction of Sankey Valley for visitors grows.There is so much specialist knowledge in the archive of files and in the heads of the remaining rangers.

They should continue their presence to spread the word and show visitors, especially school children, Sankey Valley. Cutting the last of a once much larger ranger service seems like desperate penny pinching considering the value they add to the site.

Peter S Gateley Ormskirk