SIR, — Having read Dr Wareing s letter (Herts Advertiser, November 6) on the devastation caused in Verulamium Park, St Albans, by the firework display, I confirm that there is hardly a path in the park which has not been affected. The path verges and seve

SIR, - Having read Dr Wareing's letter (Herts Advertiser, November 6) on the devastation caused in Verulamium Park, St Albans, by the firework display, I confirm that there is hardly a path in the park which has not been affected. The path verges and several lawn areas are now reduced to mud slides and quagmires - wounds which will take months, if not years, to heal.

No doubt the district council's Portfolio Holder will reply that the weather conditions were atrocious and that it was too late to cancel the event by the time the full gravity of the weather situation was known. There may also be from others the insinuation of "spoil sport" and "killjoy".

The danger is that complacency will set in as I witnessed in the park at 2.45pm last Friday afternoon. I was surveying the damage near the children's swings and play area, which is about 100 yards from the Inn on the Park. A cream/white council lorry passed me at the play area and continued along the full length of the narrow path which crosses the Park and on into the distance past the athletics track and Westminster Lodge. The lorry was far wider than the path and throughout its journey it churned up the mud already on the path verges and, worse still, to avoid pedestrians it diverged further off the path on to what was pristine lawn. I tried to remonstrate with the driver but I don't think he even saw me.

I took the number of the lorry - its registration number and its council vehicle number. I'm not into a witchhunt but the fact is that this sort of reckless, irresponsible behaviour cannot be tolerated in our park - and one wonders whether it would have happened in the weeks before the park became a quagmire.

BARRIE MORT,

Chairman, Verulam Residents Association.