EAST Lancashire's Victorian parks are a legacy local residents have been able to enjoy for more than a century.

They were planned and landscaped to give people working long hours in conditions that would not be tolerated today somewhere to escape to. They could forget the grime and filth that they also had to live in and walk to an oasis of green that was safe and pleasant.

Today, we have got rid of most of the industrial pollution and the parks should be even more attractive - if it wasn't for wreckers determined to undo so much of the good work.

At Darwen's Bold Venture Park, for example, teenagers are blamed for uprooting bulbs and flowers and vandalising the war memorial while gardeners are thought to be behind the theft of specialist plants.

Now police are stepping up patrols and townspeople who belong to Friends of Bold Venture Park are urging more people to visit the place to stop it effectively becoming a no go area for old and young alike.

Even CCTV is being looked at as a possible way of stopping the wreckers in their tracks.

The idea that cameras should have to be fixed to trees in a park to catch hooligans is a sad indictment on the society we live in.

Council direct services director Peter Hunt says: "It is a pity that a small minority can spoil the good work of others." That is putting it mildly.