In his letter to the Journal ‘Rambling Concerns’, John Turley (Journal Postbag, December 13) is a bit hard on our South Wilts Group of The Ramblers.

Far from facing an uphill struggle or being unsustainable we have a stable membership of 320-330 people in the Salisbury area with a steady influx of new members.

The Group is completely open and accessible to anyone wanting to join our walks.

We expect them to join after two or three trial runs – which they do.

We have a website advertising our walks which is accessible to non-members and we distribute our printed walks programmes via Tourist Information and many other outlets.

We also benefit from being part of a national network so members can walk with other Groups anywhere in the UK.

Other members, from New Forest or West Wilts, for example, often join our walks and we cooperate with other groups to arrange walking holidays.

I have tried without success to find Mr Turley’s walking group on the internet and wonder how he advertises it – perhaps it is a private members’ club, by invitation only?

As for the criticism that we repeat our walks - of course we do.

They are extremely popular, in lovely countryside and often to places of historical or geographical interest, and there is plenty of choice.

We run three, often four walks every week for fifty two weeks in the year, so some repetition is inevitable.

In addition to our walks on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, we cooperate with the Salisbury Walking for Health Group who do shorter walks on Thursdays, and the Wessex Walkers who do bus walks from the city on Mondays.

We all work with Wiltshire Council’s Rights of Way Officer on footpath maintenance, twice a month, providing much-needed voluntary labour.

Perhaps Mr Turley would like to help us with that, or perhaps he could offer his services to the Ramblers as an experienced walk leader – we always need more.

And he would be very welcome to come to our AGM or social events and raise any of these matters with us.

Anne Maryon-Davies

Chair, South Wilts Ramblers