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Velothon Wales 2015 routeLocal businesses unhappy with Velothon Wales disruption
With a month to go until the first Velothon Wales, local businesses have expressed a mixed reaction to the extensive road closures. The Welsh government believes the event will have a big impact on tourism, but a number of traders along the route are concerned they will lose out.
Consultation on road closures began in April and final details have now been announced for Cardiff, Caerphilly, Monmouthshire, Newport and Torfaen. A number of roads will be closed for much of the day and ITV reports that many businesses are concerned about the disruption.
Usk Garden Centre said that closing for a day in peak season will cost them £15,000. They claim that they have only had one phone call about the road closures and still don’t know what time they will reopen.
Owner, Anna Jones, told the South Wales Argus that it was a really big trading day and road closures would therefore mean a huge financial loss. “I feel that we haven’t had any information or any apology at all – do they care about local businesses? It’s ridiculous.”
Blaenavon councillor, Alan Jones, said he thought more should have been done to contact those businesses likely to be affected. "Although I support the event in principle, it will directly impact on businesses and more should have been done to make sure that every one of the traders was contacted as many say they found out through third parties."
Velothon Wales have warned of ‘extensive’ closures on Sunday June 14 for what is a sizeable event with around 15,000 riders expected to take part.
“In order for Velothon Wales to operate safely, all roads that the route follows will be closed to traffic. The organisers are working closely with all local authorities to ensure that the event causes minimal disruption to local communities, with affected roads to be closed and re-opened section-by-section to ensure the overall duration of the closure is kept to an absolute minimum.”
Detailed road closure information, including timings and maps can be found here. There is also an email address and hotline.
The 140km closed road sportive will precede a UCI-sanctioned road race which will take place on the same roads. Riders will leave Cardiff to the east and continue to Newport and Usk before entering the Brecon Beacons National Park where they will tackle the Tumble climb which featured in the 2014 Tour of Britain. The route then heads south to Cardiff city centre via Pontypool and Newbridge, including a climb of Caerphilly Mountain.
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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29 comments
I think there's lots of ways that events like these could involve local businesses more:
With a bit of imagination, the garden centre could have given every rider a handful of sunflower seeds and encouraged them to plant them at home to evoke a bit of taste of the TdF. Great bit of marketing for return visitors the following year
I rode past the Usk Garden Centre tonight. There was actually a sign on the fence stating "Cyclists welcome"
Pretty sure there will be some businesses that love this event with all the extra income it will bring into the area.
Thousands of people travelling to Wales to take part must be a good thing. for the local economy in the long run.
The argument that sportives bring in huge amounts of money, is fairly weak to be honest.
there are lots of good reasons for these sort of events to happen, realistically Cardiff will have a few more people staying, having meals out etc. and possibly Newport/Caerphilly. these are the areas that are likely to profit mostly Cardiff
Usk and Abergavenny and villages/towns around are on the edge of the breacon beacons so it's by no means clear that the extra folks arriving will spend more ie June is tourist season any way.
once into the valleys so Blaenavon on, the towns are not places set up, for tourists since they are old industrial towns, and thus fairly harsh places.
I'll be surprised if many other than some cardiff hotels/pubs/cafes do well.
I've heard the X sportives brings X amount into X place comment, but i've yet to see any proper proof of this, I live near where the Olympic RR and so on came past, was great, but the local business claimed if anything compared to any other day they lost money.
There are lots of good reasons for this sort event to take place, but the it's going to make your rich is at best weak.
The Usk Garden Centre is a regular cake stop for our club rides and well used by cyclists so this perhaps a little bit rich especially as their cake is nice nut doesn't come cheap. That said, there is an impact or a dis-benefit if the trade they would have done is displaced geographically (to another garden centre) rather than temporally (from Sunday say to Saturday). I can only guess there's a fair few moaning locals as around there is the posh part of the route. The road between Caerleon and Usk is a well-used cycling route but full of angry drivers. Not suprisingly the banners in the surrounding fields on this road were of a Tory / Ukip hue.
Good luck to all riding - I think there'll be a fair few crashes in the massed ranks on the flats on the way out - a horrific road surface with crumbling edges - keep to the middle as the reens are wet and smelly.
And they don't even pay road tax!
KiwiMike: I'm not talking about friends, I'm talking about us. Is having a not-so-non-competitive cycle ride for (mostly) men of various ages really so important that roads have to be closed?
Is that part of Wales heavily reliant on tourism? Will the number of outsiders who come to this sportive be significant enough for the regional economy? Then, maybe. Otherwise, if the number of people brought in are relatively insignicant to the overall economy it just isn't fair to cause all that disruption to businesses and people who won't see much benefit from it.
The roads are for everyone. (The irony).
Paul, what's this 'us'? I have as much in common with the 14,999 other people on bikes as I do with 14,999 other people in cars. That is to say, a form of transport.
I'm 100% certain there will be loads of women and teenagers in this event - *specifically*because it's closed-roads. My wife was ONLY keen because it was closed roads. She pays tax, yet the shit road culture in the UK effectively scares her off the roads. I stick an enormous, waggly righteous tax-paying finger up to this retailer. Their business only exists because of MY taxes paying for the road that their stock and customers arrive on. Their plant-counting staff are educated at schools and universities I pay for. When they spear their foot with a garden fork they are looked after in hospitals I pay for. Their business is kept safe from burglars using a Police force I pay for.
If the local council representing the whole community deems this A Good Thing, following due process (and you can bet it did happen, burt they just couldn't be arsed engaging) then this selfish narrow-minded numpty can join the far queue.
15,000 people spending (guesstimate based on our budget for the weekend) £200 each for accommodation, food, drink and fuel = three million quid. Plus the opportunity to promote return trips with the family etc etc.
Did the people in York manage then on TDY to carry on living
Only in Britain!
The real reason is down to the original route.
Sportive.jpg
A rolling road closure enforced by a broom wagon may be the answer & close the road for say 2-3 hours max. If the locals get disaffected, you may get people ignoring the closure, removing signs etc which could be very dangerous to riders potentially on the wrong side of the road etc. IMHO closed roads should be restricted to "serious" races/events, this has a wiff of the London marathon/charity ride about it to me.
It's a south Wales valley thing - moaning that is. People will moan about anything and everything.
You just feel like running away from some people and screaming!
My father in law who is retired moans about the road closures every time i see him (today!!). Ask him where he was planning to go - answer - nowhere. Feel like hitting over the head with my pump.
The roads around me are closed for most of the day and I am looking forward to it immensely
I do like the assumption that one day of closure means that their customers will mysteriously loose money rather than holding onto it till the following day.
Indeed, we used to have a day of the week where shops etc would all be closed so this sort of thing could happen didn't we?
One day of the year doesn't sound too much trouble to me...
I thought I was the only person who remembered that
I'm not a churchgoer or anything, but I remember with some fondness when Sunday was a day for gardening/relative visiting (bike riding) because there was literally nothing else to do. Now, the shops barely pause for breath on Xmas day before opening at stupid o'clock on Boxing Day.
As regards the matter at hand, it seems as if the organisers could have communicated with the local shop a bit better, but I suspect it wouldn't have stopped them moaning about it.
They may not be able to save anything on staff costs (we're against zero-hour contracts, right?). The plants may still need heat and water, etc.
I have some sympathy for these businesses and other road users.
A genuine, major sporting event is one thing. Though, British Cycling manage to run many of them quite safely with rolling closures. A bunch of MAMILs wanting to pretend they're pro, throwing gel wrappers and other rubbish all over the place, etc. - not something I personally think is important enough to to close roads that presumably are fairly major for at least some people and businesses (given many seem to be A roads).
(Note: I'm a MAMIL too, before anyone complains).
Some of my best friends are black/Jewish/gay too.
I must remember to pointedly ignore Usk Garden Centre as I trundle by [at the back]...
I wonder if these 'third parties' were organisations like Trader's Associations? Or the council or the Civic Society...
So are roads just there for businesses then? Won't everyone taking part be a taxpayer?
Sure there should have been some proper consultation but not everything is about the bottom line. The public benefit from this event should be the measure of it's success, not some (debatable) private cost.
what the garden centre will find is that they will do more trade on saturday. What they could have done is extended their hours for saturday as the route has been known for quite a few months now and even if official road closed notices have only recently been available, they could have guessed what was going to happen.
Unfortunately, you can't please all the people all the time!
As an entrant, I've already spent £120 on accommodation, and no doubt my mate and I will spend £50 plus on food and drink in the area, so overall everyone will benefit.
I have no idea why people always have to be so negative. it happens all the time in this country! Still, there will be 15000 very happy and positive cyclists out on South Wales' roads that weekend, so the nimbys can just suck it!!!
NIMBY's - Fek em!
I know that I'll be spending a few quid (two nights in a hotel, pubs & restaurants) down there that I wouldn't have done if it wasn't for the event, though admittedly plants won't be on my shopping list... Though some of the people who make money off me might be planning on doing up their gardens the following weekend.
If the Garden Centre or any Business come to that...is on the route ...then they could...if they have the will of course to embrace the event, get customers in early and make a day of it with BBQ's etc..... Works in France for the TdF and also LeMans...and worked fine at the Tour De Yorkshire in early May....there are a few dissenters this way for the Tour of Cambridgeshire... grumbling because their road is closed for 4 hrs....one was a councillor...who should have known better as his political party gave the event the nod in the first place....lol
Lack of proper consultation with people running businesses (given the current economic environment) is lousy treatment. I'd be pretty angry if none of my customers could reach me for a day and the people who blocked the road didn't even communicate with me or offer any kind of recompense...
costing them £15k and losing £15k are very different things, it may cost them the profit on £15k worth of turnover - at 20% profit margin their losses are £3k. If you also take into account that they can reduce there costs for the day (heating lighting staffing etc) and that some of that business will simply be delayed by a day or 2 rather than lost then the headline figure is a little misleading
I'm doing the ride... I'm happy that the roads are closed.
15 grand seems like an awful lot of money for a garden centre.
Who knew you could knock out over a hundred grands worth of plants in a week?
Saturday and Sunday are peak trading days, which is why they are twitchy.
People will spend at different times. Communication is the key as always and this event is bringing 15K to what is a fantastic area for cycling.
They'll be able to dedicate more time to their web orders, won't they?
