Room for all

What an intolerant lot cyclists are! Your correspondent last week made some ill-tempered remarks about other users of the Exmouth to Lympstone riverside trail.

What an intolerant lot cyclists are! Your correspondent last week made some ill-tempered remarks about other users of the Exmouth to Lympstone riverside trail.

Let me clarify two points for them. Firstly, it is not, and never has been, a cyclepath. Its an off-road trail suitable for cyclists and walkers alike, as the information boards make abundantly clear.

Secondly, the instruction to keep dogs on leads is a request, not a command and, therefore, I am at liberty to ignore such requests, as indeed was the Devon and Cornwall police dog handler giving his dog a good run up and down the trail earlier today.

I am a considerate dog walker. I keep the dog to heel when required, I move to the side to allow cyclists to pass and I pick up anything that the dog leaves behind.

This contrasts with the behaviour of some cyclists. Cycling far too fast often in groups, not using the bell or coming up quickly and too closely and then expecting families with small children or buggies to move, without a please or thank you.

I choose to use the estuary trail because I prefer it to crossing the railway line, not because I cannot be bothered.

Your correspondent ends with the usual doom and gloom of serial complainers - it's the council's fault for allowing a few idiots to spoil it. It is not, I suggest, that the cyclist gets off his bike and takes a good walk along the trail and allow us all to live a little. There is plenty of room for all considerate users, cyclists included.

James Parnell,

226 Lyndhurst Road, Exmouth.