AS A frequent visitor to see my family in lovely Dorset, I must take issue with Glenda Stiddard's letter, 4th June, 'We pay enough tax, our grass verges should be looked after.'

We could debate the relative aesthetic merits of unmown verges and green spaces forever, but let me assure her that for every person who thinks they are "untidy" there is at least one other who thinks they are beautiful.

What I find "soul destroying", though, is that there are still people completely unaware of the enormous environmental benefits of letting these areas grow into mini summer meadows - or they simply don't care.

They're wild flowers and cover give all sorts of hard-pressed wildlife a huge amount of help - from bees to birds to reptiles and mammals. In Dorset and up and down the country, councils are beginning to realise this and are leaving them alone until the autumn.

We have lost nearly all our wild meadows since WW2, so surely anything we can do to bring about a partial restoration is to be applauded?

And for those who like them cut, they can have them like that, all the way through to the spring: half the year clipped and manicured, half the year left wild seems a fair compromise to me.

David Gatehouse