Mary Stiff (Oxford Mail, May 24) writes eloquently of the devastation of parts of Brasenose Wood at Headington, Oxford, and the rubbish left behind by so-called conservationists working for Oxfordshire County Council.

I am reminded of the senseless destruction of the plane tree outside St Mary Magdalen Church in Oxford last year, as well as that of the willows by the river at Osney earlier this year.

There seems to be a growing fashion for despoiling natural beauty, either because of a misguided sense of health and safety or perhaps because there's a good bit of money to be made by the so-called tree surgeons, who seem to love to create work for themselves.

In the Memorial Field at Kennington, there has been wholesale, senseless destruction of hundreds of yards of blackthorn hedgerows, and nearby trees have had limbs sawn and broken off, for no apparent reason.

Now new fencing has been installed where it was not needed.

Not only was the hedge completely impenetrable before, and more than enough to keep stock from escaping, it was also more attractive to the eye and to the innumerable insects and birds that lived there.

In the last few days, a man with a chainsaw and a power shredder has been dismembering random trees in Radley Wood and reducing them to piles of logs.

Most of these trees had been blown over long ago, providing handy places for weary walkers to sit, wonderful climbing frames for kids, and bountiful food stores for the local insects and birds.

Many were still healthily growing and all were a threat to no-one.

They were also very beautiful. I have photographed and sketched many of them over the years and through the seasons.

In a few short hours, they have been savagely laid waste. On second thoughts, savages would know better.

The chainsaw man has shown total disregard for the effect not only on the local wildlife, but also on the aesthetically rich and pleasing amenity for humans tired of neat straight lines, the colour of concrete, and the song of the internal combustion engine.

The people, whoever they are, who make the decisions to unleash such destruction, have no understanding, knowledge or sensitivity for our increasingly precious wild places.

Forgive my intemperance but - a curse on their tidiness!

Incidentally, the beautiful plane trees in Castle Street, Oxford, desperately need pollarding before they become so big that they need to be removed altogether - or perhaps they will be going anyway, to make room for that pointless and expensive new Westgate scheme.

Alan Mynall, Willow Way, Radley