Here’s my latest piece for the Guardian. 

As local authority cuts dig ever deeper and warden services face the chop, Greater Manchester‘s campaigners say green spaces are at an increased risk of over-use and vandalism. Every year, Manchester city council spends just under £2m on cutting grass across the city. It’s an important service, but green campaigners think that one month’s worth of grass cutting would be better spent on saving an important warden service that cares for the region’s entire 55,000-hectare Mersey Valley.

“The council has a legal obligation to conserve biodiversity to protect it and enhance it,” says Dave Bishop, chair of Friends of Chorlton Meadows. “I don’t see how they can do that without a warden service for the Valley.”

The Mersey Valley, which stretches to Stockport in the east and the Manchester Ship…