SIR — In your columns recently a visitor to Minehead congratulated the town on the wonderful display of flowers both in the town centre and on our approach junctions.

That was followed up by a letter from Derek Blay praising Minehead Town Council, who have taken up this responsibility, for their efforts.

I’d like to add my congratulations. We have all seen a marked improvement this year on previous years, especially at Wellington Square, Ellicombe roundabout and even Middlecombe.

In Love Parks week, the brilliant volunteer gardeners were acknowledged and thanked by West Somerset Council in your paper for their contribution to the upkeep of Blenheim Gardens in the past few years. It too has been a picture for decades.

I am watching this space though.

If the vibrant colour displays in the beds which are redesigned and changed every year are to be swapped for less thirsty shrubs and perennials, as suggested in another of your reports, as a cost cutting exercise, it has me wondering.

Our seafront raised beds and borders have gone through the same low maintenance treatment and lost their colour and attraction in recent years due to council cuts.

Either grassed over or planted with shrubs such as New Zealand flax, they have, to my mind, become bland.

Flax certainly can look after itself and is good at filling a space as every gardener, to their dismay, knows. But it isn’t a show stopper.

In five years time I still want to see visitors, cameras in hand, taking snaps of the gardens to take home.

Graham Sizer, Minehead.