Reading the for and against letters about the proposed cycle path through Dunster Deer Park (Your Letters January 24), I have to say from experience this is a bad idea.

Similar paths have been opened up to encourage a more active lifestyle and it doesn’t work. It looks and sounds great on paper but the reality is different.

All around the country a year or two down the line, they transform into messy muddy tracks where it becomes impossible to enjoy a quiet walk. Mountain bike tracks trash landscape and do untold damage.

The very nature of mountain biking is both competitive and at times aggressive. The “get out of my way” speed and attitude of some riders can be very intimidating and there is no way of identifying them when they have caused an accident.

A mixed path was opened up between Bristol and Bath and years on it has been a disaster - just a speed track for the frustrated office worker at the weekend.

Another example is the canal path that runs through Bradford on Avon. Most of the year it is just a mud bath and no pleasure to walk – it has descended into a race track full of litter and churned up ground.

I doubt these people even notice their surroundings, they go too fast.

I have no problem travelling behind someone on a push bike who either chooses or has no other means of transport. Fair play to them especially on a cold dark morning going to work. I have unlimited patience.

But there is a time and a place for these ever more popular activities, and the further up a mountainside in a remote middle of nowhere the better.

If this is allowed to go ahead it will be a disaster in the making.

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