IT IS now approaching the long-awaited season for jam makers and juicy blackberries are ripening.

A favourite haunt for blackberry pickers is Shotover Country Park.

However, sadly quite a lot of the blackberry clumps have been decimated by over-zealous groups of volunteers who meet up at Shotover for what is laughably described as “conservation” activities.

Presumably the Sunday amateur groups think that brambles are ugly and need to be cleared.

Perhaps the volunteer scheme should be curtailed? It seems to be doing more harm than good.

SUSAN THOMAS, Magdalen Road, Oxford