Once again I have returned from Great Yarmouth saddened by the condition of the Venetian Waterways. The gardeners clearly do their best but the air of neglect and decay is overpowering.

The replacement metal bridges do a job but are not a patch on the rustic ones which added to the grace and charm of the Waterways. The pillars with no bridge are an eyesore. If there is no intention to put a bridge there, remove them. The shelter in the middle of the Waterways is losing most of its thatch and there are no seats.

Presumably because they attached the “wrong element.”

Is this an example of disease rife today? Don’t solve a problem, sidestep it or better still pretend it doesn’t exist. I have mobility problems and longed to take a rest in this once pretty shelter.

I am old enough to remember when scores of excited children queued to ride the animal boats that plied the Waterways all eagerly looking for the illuminated storybook characters on the banks. I should do, I was one of them.

The Waterways of course suffers from being slightly out of turn. I see in this week’s Mercury that the new bus service will have a Waterways stop, perhaps this will help but there is not much to see

And don’t even start me on the boating lake!

MARY C DAWKINS

Wolsey Road

Sunbury on Thames