Penny and Kit Noble, of Church Hill, Kingswear, writes:

We write in response to your article in last week's paper concerning the coastal footpath closure in Kingswear.   

We do not feel the article gave your readers the full facts and would like to put two villagers' viewpoint on the closure of this vital pathway.       The village of Kingswear is built on a hill and for those of us who need to access the top of Church Hill, Ridley Hill, and then onto Mount Ridley Road, not to mention those who live out along Castle Road, we now only have two ways to get home at present – either the steep Church Hill or the even steeper 121 steps from Beacon Road to the top of Church Hill.      Fine for the fittest in the village (although even this can sometimes defeat us!) but not at all fine for the elderly and less able, of whom we have quite a few who live higher up the hill.    

The steps themselves are steep, very uneven and dangerously slippery – not ideal at all – and the hill especially just beyond the church entrance is very steep.    

The coast path along Beacon Road and then back along Castle Road gave the villagers and other visitors to Kingswear a much gentler walk to their homes and holiday accommodation and walkers an easy start to their journey to Brixham and beyond.       

To make matters worse, there are inadequate signs at the start of Beacon Road and visitors and hikers are now greeted some 500 yards along the road with a fence and signs indicating closure  with the only alternative to where they want to go being the climb up the steps to the top of Church Hill.     

Living next door to the steps we are often met by people completely out of breath and exhausted and it won't be too long before we have an accident on our hands.

It is vital that the coast path is opened up again and I would suggest that there are alternatives to the costly £100,000 Devon County Council are reporting it will cost to mend.    

The path is quite wide at the point where the landslide happened – why cannot it be made narrower? Or why not build a bridge of lighter construction from one side of the damage to the other? 

Why home owners in Kingswear should be asked or be held responsible for paying for repair of this local amenity is beyond us.    

This is a public footpath, is the responsibility of the council and home owners are already paying enormous amounts of council tax for just this kind of repair to local infrastructure. 

While we agree with the view of Councillor Hawkins that the views are magnificent, this is really not an important reason when considering the reopening of the path – the main reason has got to be ease of access for local people - the actual people who use it and live here.    

We need the path open – we have been without it for over a year – that is long enough.

A petition has not been started but it certainly will be now.