IMAGINE if Ashton Gardens was turned into a multi-story car park and if St Annes-on-Sea was renamed Safeways-on-Sea.

One St Annes artist did just that and the result was a cartoon showing Ashton Gardens reduced to a fenced-in pond, with the rest of St Annes taken over by a giant NCP car park and a supermarket.

Nick Taylor, 28, of St Davids Road North, who drew the cartoon, dreamed up the idea for the picture after a flash of nocturnal inspiration.

He said: "I have been thinking about Ashton Gardens for a while because it is a lovely park and I would hate to see it go.

"To get ideas for my cartoons I just look at what is going on around me.

"In St Annes the future of Ashton Gardens is the biggest issue for everyone so I decided to do something on that.

"One night something just clicked and I knew what I wanted to get across.

"Through my cartoon I am trying to speak for everybody I know who is against Ashton Gardens going and I also want to provoke other people to think about this issue."

Nick, who says he has been hooked on cartoons for as long as he can remember, and who currently uses his artistic talents in his work for the Dalmeny Hotel, says that his ambition is to work full-time as a cartoonist or as an illustrator of children's books.

He added: "When I was young it was Batman and Superman that grabbed my imagination, now I love humorous cartoons you see in newspapers and I like doing cartoons on topical things.

"But as long as I'm drawing I know I'll be happy."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.