The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Coast along on England’s answer to Route 66
The new South West 660 links Dorset, Devon, Cornwall and Somerset – but what are the best bits? Chris Moss reveals all
Coast roads can be deceptive. I’ve set off on many, only to find they veer inland and miss the best beaches, affording views not of sweeping sand but of gridlocked villages and farmers’ fields.
The launch of South West 660, a 660-mile route along the littoral from Poole to Watchet, via Land’s End, sounds like a great idea. The cliffs and coves, strands and surf spots of Dorset, Devon, Cornwall and West Somerset are rightly famous – a magnet not only for inlanders but for northerners and Scots who willingly do the long drive down, opting for Bude and Newquay, Minehead and Paignton over nearer seaside towns.
The South West Coast Path already offers walkers a wonderful experience of the wild edges of the region. We’re always being told we need to do more exercise, so isn’t a 660-mile car trip a bit excessive, a significant carbon dump as well as a potential traffic problem for the destination?
But South West 660, a commercial venture set up by three locals, aims to be a guide rather than a challenge. Its website, southwest660.com, contains a map and local information, and members can get more detailed notes, downloadable GPX files and discounted meals for the princely sum of £15 for two months.
As co-founder Mark Godfrey notes: “Each of the 12 sections is around 50 miles long, allowing visitors to take their time and experience the diversity and splendour of our beautiful corner of the UK.”
The founders were no doubt inspired by Ireland’s hugely successful Wild Atlantic Way, launched in 2014, and the wall-to-wall coverage generated by Scotland’s North Coast 500, which opened in 2015. But the former is a whopping 1,553 miles long and many areas of Ireland’s west are not heavily congested; it also received millions of euros from the Irish government to pay for signage, new walking and cycling trails, and visitor centres.
The latter has brought boy-racers to once-idyllic roads and led to an increase in accidents.
I have driven sections of the Irish coast route and was very impressed with the concept. I have taken the road to Cornwall many times, admittedly using the throbbing A30 and A39 trunks, and I have to admit to not always enjoying Devon’s hemmed-in lanes. The South West 660 is already generating warm online chitchat, including by motorhome owners. But there’s no reason why this road trip can’t be a boost for parts of the South West that don’t already get hordes of tourists. Drivers need information about parking and live feeds of accidents. E-car drivers need plugging-in sites. The website team should dispense tips on “what to avoid” and hire some historians, culture vultures and archaeology buffs to provide really original local insights.
A strictly coastal drive means shunning Totnes, Dartmoor, Bodmin Moor and other inland delights. Personally I’d drop Salcombe and Padstow and make a few inroads if you’ve not driven down here before. But driving holidays can be delightful, especially when taken slowly, with lots of stopping and consideration for other road users and walkers.