BOURNEMOUTH tourism boss Mark Smith exaggerates the likely effect of the proposed Navitus Bay wind farm on visitor numbers (Echo, October 29).

The Scottish study on which he bases his estimates looked mainly at onshore, not offshore, wind farms, in areas where spectacular landscapes are the main, or even the only, visitor attraction.

This and many other studies have found that tourists are more favourably disposed to offshore than onshore wind farms, that hostility to wind farms lessens over time, and that established wind farms can themselves become tourist attractions.

ALAN NEALE, Poole