A NEW £500k cycle path between Brean and Weston-Super-Mare has seen seen hundreds of people head out on their bikes on Bank Holiday Monday.

The path has been in the works for more than 20 years but provisionally opened for cyclists to try out on Bank Holiday Monday, although the route will not be fully complete until the end of the month, organisers say.

The plans have been put together by the non-profit organisation Greenways And Cycle Routes and the route has been funded by North Somerset Council, Sedgemoor District Council and the government's Coastal Communities Fund.

One of the key things the route, referred to as the Brean Down Way, provides is access through the Brean Sluice Gate allowing those using it to cross the River Axe, which previously took a long diversion.

John Grimshaw, director at Greenways And Cycles Routes, said: "It was a fantastic day, we had 500 to 700 people go across, and many of them said this is something that they had wanted to do for years.

"It is not fully open as there is tarmacing of the last 400 yards at Warren Road which will take place over the next three weeks.

"It has been a very complicated project as it sits right on the boundary between North Somerset and Sedgemoor. Monday was a celebration of the work volunteers completed over the previous nine days to help with the Bird Wall we had to build as part of the planning consent.

"The bird hide will help protect birds in the estuary from being affected by the cyclists."

Mr Grimshaw has high hopes for the route becoming a great tourist attraction for the area.

"There were lots of families that attended yesterday who would not have been able to use it before. Those from Weston will now be able to get to Brean and head along one of the most attractive miles of walking and cycling in the country out to the fort," Mr Grimshaw said.

"Equally the 30,000 at Brean now have a wonderful resource to access Weston without using a car.

"We want it to be like Somerset's equivalent of the Camel Trail in Cornwall which attracts up to 400,000 people per year."

The eight-mile route starts near the beach at Uphill and heads along to the National Trust shop at Brean Down as well as out to the spectacular views of the wartime fort.