SUSAN Stockwell suggests that it would cost just £5 million to get people out of cars and onto bikes from Hengistbury Head to Sandbanks (Letters, Nov 17).

It would take only a few thousand pounds to get people walking.

The cliff top Bournemouth Coast Path, linking the Dorset Coast Path with the Christchurch Coastal Path, is already there and just needs waymarking to give it wider recognition.

It could be a huge attraction for not just residents but also visitors needing overnight accommodation without clogging the town with polluting cars.

“One day was like the Corniche, so soft and sunny, the Isle of Wight looming, and yet not distant, and the waters glittering in the bay-like coast,” wrote prime minister Benjamin Disraeli in 1874 having looked at the sea.

Author Henry James thought the view of the bay to be better than the town and its pines.

That view, unlike the town, is unchanged and there for us to enjoy now.

LEIGH HATTS

Stoke Wood Road, Bournemouth