YOUR excellent newspaper often features the efforts of cash-strapped local councils to provide adequate services for the elderly.

What prompts Christchurch Council, then, to allocate scarce resources to providing a mountain bike park in Highcliffe, where reportedly the population registers a higher proportion of elderly people than any comparable community in Europe?

Moreover, why locate such a facility in Chewton Bunny, an area of outstanding natural beauty?

Someone, of course, will make money from this misbegotten makeover.

Could the bike park be a political ploy to split public opinion by representing those who object to development of the site as being anti-youth?

F A FORD Elphinstone Road, Highcliffe,