OVER this holiday weekend, thousands of people are making their way to the nearest garden centre and picking up bags of peat compost without thinking twice about it. Sadly, they will be helping to destroy a precious habitat.

Lowland peat bogs were once common across the North West. Back in 1830, the engineer George Stephenson famously had to 'float' his pioneering Liverpool and Manchester railway over the notorious Chat Moss. As elsewhere, most of it has now been drained.

Last month, I visited Wedholme Flow in north Cumbria. Even I, who hardly can tell one flower from another, could appreciate the richness and diversity of the plantlife that includes some of the rarest species in Britain.

Just 400 yards away, ditches had been cut to drain the bog. The living plants were gone, and the ground was a great expanse of bare peat left drying in the wind.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds says that 95 per cent of these precious lowland bogs have been lost, yet the destruction continues.

TV gardener Monty Don has called for the use of peat-free composts. I am told these are more 'challenging,' but surely no one will be happy to use peat once they realise that wonderful habitats are being destroyed to provide it.

If you are visiting a garden centre, insist on buying only peat-free materials.

CHRIS DAVIES (Liberal Democrat MEP for the North West), Castle Street, Stockport.