Durrockstock deserves to remain a haven for the beauty of nature

WE REVISIT DEREK PARKER'S RAMBLES THROUGH RENFREWSHIRE

- 

It was encouraging to read that Foxbar's Durrockstock Dam will become a local nature reserve.

The Renfrewshire Council move partially offsets its planners’ environmentally-unfriendly approval of the destruction of mature trees at a cycle path in Glenburn and Stoddard’s carpet factory in Elderslie.

Urban-based planning officers seem unaware that fully-grown trees provide food and shelter for birds, bats, squirrels, insects, butterflies and moths.

One of the saddest ecological losses in my lifetime was the filling-in of Foxbar Dam and felling of neighbouring trees 40 years ago. Those of us old enough will remember Foxbar Dam was an aquatic jewel in the bright diadem of bucolic beauty on Paisley's doorstep.