On Your Bike for Coastal Connection

Almost 50 bicycle riders left the De La Warr Pavilion on Saturday morning to make the trip to the Glyne Gap beach cafe where they met enthusiasts from Hastings who set off from the pier.

Walkers also joined in the event aimed at publicising the need for a new beach link from the cafe up to the site of the old bathing pool.

The mass bike ride and walk was held by HastingsUrbanBikes to generate publicity in support of the Sustrans Lottery Bid which if successful would see this missing piece of the coastal route finally put into place.

Organiser David Colquhoun said: "We are trying to support Sustrans, which is about sustainable transport, aiming to link up the whole country with cycle ways.

"We are trying to get a continuous cycle way along the seafront from Hastings to Bexhill. There is a route all the way round Folkestone and Dover but at the moment there is this gap between Hastings and Bexhill.

You can obviously cycle along the road but there is no official cycle way through there."

The long-awaited beach link would cost 600,000 to cover the cost of laying down a solid surface more user-friendly for both cyclists and walkers than the loose gravel track along St Leonards seafront.

One cyclist leaving the DLWP unafraid of the prospect of cycling to Glyne Gap was Bexhill's own marathon man Dean Baker who has in recent years achieved amazing feats of physical endurance.

He said: "I think the cycle path is a necessity. How great to get the kids out and get them cycling somewhere safe...What could be better than cycling along the coast to Hastings?"