A HAMPSHIRE councillor has been dismissed as a “public sector bureaucrat” after defending a controversial campaign to make countryside walkers more polite.

Cllr David Harrison said a £35,000 outlay on promoting manners in the South Downs was “insignificant”.

But it came weeks after he branding a £10,000 grant for a royal street party a “disgrace”.

It has led to criticism from the TaxPayers’ Alliance pressure group, which has branded the South Downs campaign “utterly pointless”.

National park chiefs were criticised last week for spending taxpayers’ money on the initiative encouraging ramblers to “be nice” to each other.

But the Lib Dem county councillor for Totton South has come to the authority’s defence, despite condemning a royal grant less than a third of the size by Hampshire County Council.

In a letter to the Daily Echo, Cllr Harrison said: “The figure of £35,000 to encourage people to be friendly to one another sounds, at first sight, to be a complete waste of money and an unnecessary expense to the taxpayer.

“However, when you consider that the South Downs National Park currently gets about eight million visits a year, the cost works out at about 0.004p per visitor, so it’s an insignificant sum.”

As reported by the Daily Echo on Monday (Apr 18), the Share the Path initiative aims to prevent confrontations in the largely safe South Downs.

Alex Wild, research director at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “This is a staggering waste of money by an authority that has clearly lost touch with reality.

“This is an utterly pointless and patronising ‘campaign’ to solve a problem that doesn’t exist – the plug should be pulled on it before any more taxpayers’ money is wasted.”

In a reference to Cllr Harrison, he added: “While the amount might not seem like a lot to a public sector bureaucrat, they have to remember that someone had to go out and work for it.”

But Cllr Harrison said it would encourage people from other cultures or with mental health issues to enjoy the countryside.

In March he blasted the cash-strapped county council for spending £10,000 on a street party in Winchester for the Queen’s 90th birthday.

Conservative Winchester City Council boss Stephen Godfrey, pictured top, who supports both projects, said: “Tens of thousands of pounds is a lot of money, but when they’re spent across many hundreds and thousands of people then they become less significant for those people who benefit from it.”