Closing roads for motorsport
Discussion
There is an overall blanket ban on road closures for motor sport events which has been in place since the 1890s. However, on rare occasions, the ban can be over ruled by Parliament. This is very rare.
In Ireland etc, all you need is a licence from the local authority and the police permission.
In Ireland etc, all you need is a licence from the local authority and the police permission.
Eric Mc said:
There is an overall blanket ban on road closures for motor sport events which has been in place since the 1890s. However, on rare occasions, the ban can be over ruled by Parliament. This is very rare.
In Ireland etc, all you need is a licence from the local authority and the police permission.
Is this right? I understood that the road closure order is relatively easy to obtain but the real obstacle is in the lifting ofte speed limits which is what the act of parliament is required for. Of course cycle racers never break the speed limit do they...In Ireland etc, all you need is a licence from the local authority and the police permission.
The Jim Clark organisers succesfully lobbied for the permission and it is estimated the weeked brings in well over 1 million pounds worth of trade for the area. And of course the IOM makes a fortune out of it!
It took the organisers of the Jim Clark over 10 years and a lot of money to get everything sorted, and that's in a relatively sparsely populated part of the world with a lot of pro-motorsport feeling. I'd think trying to do the same in any other part of the UK would be nigh on impossible now 
Nic jones said:
Eric Mc said:
There is an overall blanket ban on road closures for motor sport events which has been in place since the 1890s. However, on rare occasions, the ban can be over ruled by Parliament. This is very rare.
In Ireland etc, all you need is a licence from the local authority and the police permission.
Is this right? I understood that the road closure order is relatively easy to obtain but the real obstacle is in the lifting ofte speed limits which is what the act of parliament is required for. Of course cycle racers never break the speed limit do they...In Ireland etc, all you need is a licence from the local authority and the police permission.
The Jim Clark organisers succesfully lobbied for the permission and it is estimated the weeked brings in well over 1 million pounds worth of trade for the area. And of course the IOM makes a fortune out of it!
The point is that in other parts of the British Isles no such government involvement is required.
No idea Eric, to be honest I don't even remember writing that post, which is impressively coherent considering the time and the alcohol content within my body at the time!
It would be wonderful to see closed road racing/rallying in this country but I'm not sure it will ever happen now the masses have been brain washed into the 'cars are bad' way of thinking and so many are anti noise and anti motorsport
It would be wonderful to see closed road racing/rallying in this country but I'm not sure it will ever happen now the masses have been brain washed into the 'cars are bad' way of thinking and so many are anti noise and anti motorsport
To sum up -
Closing a road doesn't "close" the speed limit. To remove the speed limit you need an act of parliament to do this.
The Jim Clark gets away as Scottish parliament can remove the speed limit for them, hence easier to do than dealing with westminister.
There was a big debate in rallying 20 years ago about whether to go for forst or close roads, forest was choosen. The problem was as many at the time said, with an increasing green movment if cars got banned from forest stages, bye bye rallying! Thus efforts should have been put into getting a bill that would have made it easier to get speed limits removed.
Also the forestry commission now charged events a fortune to run or use their forest, a bill that increases every year, hence the events become shorter, and shorter.
Closing a road doesn't "close" the speed limit. To remove the speed limit you need an act of parliament to do this.
The Jim Clark gets away as Scottish parliament can remove the speed limit for them, hence easier to do than dealing with westminister.
There was a big debate in rallying 20 years ago about whether to go for forst or close roads, forest was choosen. The problem was as many at the time said, with an increasing green movment if cars got banned from forest stages, bye bye rallying!
Thus efforts should have been put into getting a bill that would have made it easier to get speed limits removed.Also the forestry commission now charged events a fortune to run or use their forest, a bill that increases every year, hence the events become shorter, and shorter.
Nic jones said:
No idea Eric, to be honest I don't even remember writing that post, which is impressively coherent considering the time and the alcohol content within my body at the time!
It would be wonderful to see closed road racing/rallying in this country but I'm not sure it will ever happen now the masses have been brain washed into the 'cars are bad' way of thinking and so many are anti noise and anti motorsport
I agree (not about the alcohol bit It would be wonderful to see closed road racing/rallying in this country but I'm not sure it will ever happen now the masses have been brain washed into the 'cars are bad' way of thinking and so many are anti noise and anti motorsport
).One of the reasons I always liked watching Irish rallying is because of the tarmac. It somehow just looked more "serious" and faster than all that loose surface stuff.
You can apply via the local council to close any road. The problem is that even after you have closed the road the national speed limit for that particular road still applies as do the road traffic act rules. This is where you will need an act of parliment to get the road traffic act lifted. So unless you can find some corruptable M.P.'s !!!!! I would forget it!!
MonkeyHanger said:
revrange said:
The Jim Clark gets away as Scottish parliament can remove the speed limit for them, hence easier to do than dealing with westminister.
The Act of Parliament allowing the Jim Clark was signed in 1996, 3 years before the Scottish Parliament held its first session.
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