OVER the past few months it has been my pleasure to spend many happy hours walking around some of our local towns.

I say pleasure but to be honest it would have been a pleasure if it had not been for the vast quantities of rubbish that now seem to be part of 'street furniture'.

I have come to wonder what visitors to west Wiltshire must think of our once beautiful area.

As they approach any of our towns the roadsides are littered with empty cans and bottles, paper blowing in the wind or hanging from trees and bushes.

Take a walk around any estate or area and you will see more empty cans and bottles, often flattened by cars and vans and more paper blowing around until finally coming to rest in some poor person's garden, where I expect it is finally collected and disposed of. Am I the only person to notice this vast increase over such a short period of time?

What are our local councils doing about it?

When going to work each day are the people responsible for street cleaning blind, you don't have to look very hard to see the problem yet nothing seems to happen to clear it up. It would be nice to think the people who deliberately drop litter would be caught and fined, however who is going to catch them? The police? I don't think so.

Spring is just around the corner and the grass will start to grow, bushes will burst into leaf; at least this will hide some of the problems, or at least until the grass cutters come along and shred it all to blow in the wind all summer.

S P SHARPE,

West Parade,

Warminster.