• DO we really need Camden and Islington health chiefs to tell people to use our overcrowded green spaces, full of daily joggers and walkers?

What we do need, as reader Susanne Griffin pointed out last week (Litter fines could be used to help clean up the environment, July 14) is respect for and safeguarding of our green spaces, funded by the taxpayer.

Just as there are many users, there are many abusers who litter with impunity due to lack of enforcement.

It is not just our parks where discarded (and recyclable) bags, cans and bottles outnumber the trees and (illegally picked) flowers.

A large planter meant to beautify the ugly Warren Street intersection is a tip, and the pathetic trees and shrubs are rotting in piles of rubbish.

On Tottenham Court road a newly planted sapling has been knocked over and its tiny bit of soil, left parched from the heatwave, is used as an ashtray – filled with cigarettes ends.

The green bag protecting it from dog urine is stuffed with Coca-Cola cans so that when I tried to water it I had to remove the rubbish to reach the soil.

Clearly education is failing and we need enforcement and maintenance to work hand in hand. But Camden Council for one would rather waste scarce resources on the hideous and unnecessary road works at the Savernake Road footpath onto the Heath.

Parents, schools, councils and law enforcement agencies have failed to safeguard our precious green environment and health chiefs telling us to take a walk just leads to depression.

JOYCE GLASSER
Savernake Road, NW3