OPINION: I'm beginning to wonder if there was any point building all the cycle lanes in Portsmouth

Yet while essential services face the chop you still advocate spending more taxpayers’ money on trying to get The Tour de France here.

As the Department of Culture, Media and Sport say, there is no evidence that elite sport gets more people active.

For example, Britain now has the number one tennis player in the world, but Sport England shows that fun participation in tennis continues to fall.

Your page 26 editorial offers just supposition not proof (We can prove how Le Tour turned us into a cycling city).

I’m beginning to wonder if there was any point building all the cycle lanes in Portsmouth since many cyclists still prefer to ride on the pavement even if there is a cycle lane immediately alongside?

I am now retired, but for many years I had business on the seafront in the immediate vicinity of the start-finish of the 1994 tour.

For a fact, I don’t know any seafront business who claimed the 1994 tour had been good for business.

Yes, the local guest houses etc were full, but they should have been anyway since it was almost peak summer season.

Finally, perhaps you didn’t know that ‘Le Tour’ retains the rights for catering and stalls in the start-finish area, not the city, and rights to all souvenir sales anywhere?

* This letter was submitted to The News by Terry Pearson, who lives in Dean Street, Portsmouth