Horse drawn narrow boat Iona

Never walked the SW coast path, but a quick google suggests that the majority is footpath and if so cyclists/horse riders etc should not be their by law, so rather different to towpaths.

 

I can't vouch for the 800 mile length of the SW coast path but areas I have walked do get cyclists and horses, not all the time admittedly.
I suspect the problem with the anti- cycling feeling by some folk is that the do not notice the majority who ride sensibly but just those who flout the highway code in one way streets and at traffic lights.
Not unique to the UK, however, the Times Square web cam illustrates most days of how not to behave on a bicycle.

 

I think this goes for every activity where there are irresponsible people. Some are irritating - a neighbour who had a motorbike, which he liked to take for a ride at 7am on Sunday morning, but only after running it for an hour beforehand, revving it every few minutes. Some are more dangerous to others For example a dog owner let their dog take a crap in the middle of the children’s swings in the park I use, which is not only unpleasant but also a health risk for children.

Tourists who litter, photographers who go down the ramp. Pick an activity and there will be some knuckle dragger who thinks their right means they can do what they like with no thought for other people.

Every activity has its boorish badly behaved people. There are Toads of Toad Hall in every era.

On the subject of countryside behaviour, I read a letter from a priest from around 1900 complaining that all the local boys who were shepherds had all lost their virginity to their sheep as well as complaining about their destructive behaviour - killing and eating wild birds, taking and eating eggs from nests. There’s also notorious case of a beauty spot near Reading where in the 1930s people tried to keep it pristine, and other people kept on trashing it.

Hell is other people.

 

I certainly have no time for the morons who think that any track is there for their motorbike or 4x4