Council concern over the World Cycling Championship

Stuart Minting, our Local Democracy Reporter*, has more

Councils preparing to stage one of the world’s leading annual sporting events are grappling with the unknown cost of hosting it.

Richmondshire and Hambleton say, while they are not facing upfront licence fees to host the UCI World Championships as they have with the Tour de Yorkshire, it has proved impossible so far to estimate the cost to the public purse.

The councils believe hosting the championships will stimulate positive attention on their districts and promote the areas to a global audience.

While council officials in North Yorkshire have built a significant body of experience hosting international cycling events since staging the Tour de France in 2014, they say the variety of races, each with different demands, at next September’s event, has made planning more difficult.

Leading members of Hambleton, which will host the men’s time trial in Northallerton, have held a private meeting to agree to finance costs such as policing, security barriers and litter collections, but have declined to reveal the total they have set aside.

They have also agreed to delegate power to the leader and chief executive to approve a ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ with the UCI over the authority’s responsibilities.

The council’s leader, Councillor Mark Robson, said officers were working “to get a better understanding” of the costs.

He added:

“We need to understand the economic benefit to Northallerton and Hambleton will far outweigh the cost to hold the event. To bring one of the biggest events in the world to the area has got to be positive.”

Meanwhile, the Richmondshire authority’s corporate board is set to approve setting aside £69,000 to cover its costs hosting the men’s junior road race at Richmond and a large section of the men’s road race.

Officers said they believed the funding, which is the amount left unspent from the £220,000 it budgeted for the latest Tour de Yorkshire, would be sufficient to cover the authority’s world championships costs.

The council’s leader, Councillor Yvonne Peacock, said uncertainty continued to surround how much hosting the event would be, but the authority’s increasing experience in acting as host was enabling it to reduce costs.

* Local Democracy Reporters are based at regional newspaper offices and funded by the BBC . Their stories are made available to all local news outlets.

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