It must be at least a month since I saw or read of council waste of our tax money. Here goes . . .

We, the taxpayers, have now bought new mowing machines which parks' staff use to cut the grass in our lovely parks.

The old machines cut the grass and chopped it finely into tiny pieces before spraying it around where it merged into the general grassed area.

Some people may remember the cloud of green rising behind the mowers as they moved across the grassed areas of the parks.

The new mowers cut the grass off, whatever the length, leaving great lumps, blotches and strips of muddy-brown, ugly rotting grass all over the greasy areas of the park being mown.

There is no machine to rake up the stuff and, in any case, raking would mean park workers going over the same ground twice.

Does no-one with groundsman expertise, or even a lawn back home, see expensive machinery actually at work before signing up to buy several duplicates of these machines?

Especially when they could spoil someone else's enjoyment of what they are supposed to be keeping in good order and spending someone else's money to do it.

P ST CLAIR Argyle Street Oxford