MY walk from Blackrod station along the footpaths to Ladybridge Lane to see my family on Sunday showed me the extent of Network Rail's destruction of three historic railway bridges; Blackrod Station, the farmer's livestock bridge between Blackrod and Horwich and the Deane to Overdale Bridge.

All were Victorian stone bridges but have had the top part of their structures removed and replaced with concrete supports, walls and, in Blackrod station's case, a small amount of grey brickwork.

The result is an unsightly contrast of old and new, and an insult to the original architects, skilled labour and quarried stone materials used. Network Rail should have clad the new concrete work with the stone of old, and thereby at least kept a semblance of the original bridges' aesthetics, but I presume they deemed this an unnecessary expense.

In the case of the Farmer's Bridge and the Deane/Overdale, the tall, exposed concrete slabs surrounding the bridges' footpaths are pure white and therefore a blank canvas for graffiti.The former bridge's railway number has been replaced and is now displayed on a piece of plastic, about the size of a table mat, and supported by just two screws drilled into the cement wall. It would take minimal effort for a vandal to break this.

Work on the footbridge from Deane to Ladybridge starts next Monday, June 29. With its fine stone arches over the brook and the railway, it is an impressive structure that can be appreciated from afar by people walking along the footpath. Are N.R. going to ruin this bridge too?

On my arrival at their home, I told a family member what I had witnessed adding that if the bridges had been in a National Park, Area of Outstanding Beauty or Preservation Area there would have been an outcry at such vandalism. So why has it happened here? His succinct reply; "Because its Bolton".

Mr R Kershaw

Church Street

Horwich