FROM time to time one is forced to put pen to paper.

This time it is about a handful of golfers wishing to gobble up the last remaining fields in the Breightmet area, and in doing so, having a farmer thrown out of his house.

The question is, do they really need these nine extra holes? Is it a matter of life or death? They know that the answer is NO.

One could ask, what does it matter to me, as I live in Farnworth? But what happens today effects tomorrow, which in turn effects our children's children, no matter where we live.

The eco system in that small area is still impressive. One has to understand that if wildlife is pressured, it does not move somewhere else, it dies out.

Already within the last 10 years, on a national scale, the skylark has dropped from eight million pairs to below one and a half million, the songthrush in the same period of time from two million pairs to 400,000, even the humble house sparrow is about to be placed on the Red List.

Wasps, bees, dragonflies, frogs and newts are on the rack, along with many of our native flowers.

Once an eco system in destroyed, it has gone for all time.

Others thought it did not matter,

For all those involved there in no escaping the man in the mirror.

P German

(Retired endangered

species inspector)

Highfield Road

Farnworth, Bolton