TO all residents of St Helens. Do you have an urge to smash open the gates protecting council-owned land?

Would you like to drive your car across open fields, churning up the ground while leisurely discarding all of your household and bodily wastes at the same time?

Then, feel free. The police and the council don't mind!

The borough of St Helens appears to have become a Mecca for 'travellers' over the past few years because of the apparent apathy of the authorities concerned. The latest acquisition of these so-called travellers (though they don't seem to travel very far!) is a substantial section of the old Sutton Manor colliery. What has taken many months to turn into an excellent country park-type area, used by walkers, cyclists, horse-riders, etc., has, over the space of one day and one night, been over-run by travellers and their vast convoy of vehicles.

In the space of one day a large area of open greenery and its adjacent footpaths has been turned into what looks like a disaster area. Access was gained by smashing open a set of double gates leading to a wide tarmac footpath. This footpath has now become a busy road as the travellers go about their everyday business. Was the response by the council and the police swift and decisive? Once it was realised that travellers were still arriving -- the day after the gates had been opened -- were there officials there to prevent anymore from entering the site? Don't be silly!

It will take a week to obtain an eviction order and another week before it has to be enforced, by which time the area will be in a worse state than before it was renovated.

Is it surprising that these so-called travellers appear to like St Helens so much? It appears that they can do what they like wherever they like, without the authorities lifting a finger to stop them.

Liverpool and Warrington don't have a problem with travellers. If the authorities don't deal with them, then local residents take matters into their own hands. Is that what the authorities want to happen here? Is that what has to happen before the council and the police realise that the people of St Helens are sick of having every piece of open land turned into a dumpsite?

L. MORRIS, Tennyson Street, Sutton Manor.