Residents invited to visit community RideLondon drop-in sessions
Questions welcome at events in towns and villages on route of mass participation cycling event.
Community events to outline event preparations and on-the-day operations to Essex residents who live on the RideLondon-Essex 60 and RideLondon-Essex 100 routes, are taking place over the next few weeks.
Essex will welcome 25,000 cyclists on Sunday 29 May as RideLondon, the world’s greatest cycling festival, comes to the county for the first time.
This is the first year of a partnership between RideLondon and Essex County Council. The partnership brings two mass participation rides into the county on Sunday 29 May, the RideLondon-Essex 100 and RideLondon-Essex 60. A shorter RideLondon 30 event finishing in Woodford will also take place on the day.
In total there will be 65 miles of Essex roads included in the route with cyclists passing through Ongar, Great Dunmow, Felsted and the outskirts of Chelmsford, using many of the same roads used by the Tour de France when the race visited Essex in 2014.
To keep all communities informed of preparations and event details, including access and road closures on the day, RideLondon has organised a number of community drop-in sessions. Residents can visit during the times shown below, learn about the plans in detail, view maps of the route, ask questions and speak to members of the RideLondon team.
Comments and feedback provided at engagement events will help to refine the drafted access plans with final plans made available at www.ridelondon.co.uk after 9 May.
A leaflet outlining RideLondon road closures will be available at these events for residents to take away and study in their own time.
The next community events are:
Chigwell on Friday 29 April, Chigwell Parish Council, Hainault Road, Chigwell, IG7 6QZ from 4pm to 6pm
Buckhurst Hill on Friday 29 April, Roding Valley Hall, Buckhurst Hill, IG9 6LN from 12 noon to 4pm
Great Dunmow on Tuesday 3 May, Talberd Room, Foakes Hall, CM6 1DG from 4pm to 7pm
Maldon on Thursday 5 May, Maldon Town Hall, Maldon, CM9 4RL from 8am to 12 noon
Further events are being planned for Ongar, Stapleford Abbotts, Little Baddow and The Rodings. Details for these events have yet to be finalised, but once finalised they will be made public.
Cllr Lee Scott, Essex County Council Cabinet Member for Sustainable Transport and Highways Maintenance, said: “This is a great event for Essex, which will build on the legacy of 2012 Olympic Games and the visit of Tour de France in 2014, an event which will open up less well-known areas of the county to visitors.
“Like those events, we want residents to be fully informed, to know exactly what is going on. If you live on the route and have any questions about organisation for any of the RideLondon events, do go along to these events and speak to the team.”
As well as the RideLondon-Essex 100 and RideLondon-Essex 60 on Sunday 29 May, a three-day UCI Women’s WorldTour stage race, the RideLondon Classique, takes place from Friday 27 May to Sunday 29 May with the first two stages in Essex. Stage One starts and finishes in Maldon and includes two laps of Abberton Reservoir while Stage Two starts in Chelmsford, heads north as far as Great Sampford before retuning south through the county and finishing in Epping.”
For more information on this exciting event go to www.ridelondon.co.uk