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news
Edinburgh Castle © Simon MacMichael.pngEdinburgh to strengthen TdF Grand Depart bid with £225,000 funding for 2015 Tour series events
Edinburgh’s council is to strike a £225,000 deal to hold two stages of the 2015 Friends Life Tour of Britain and one Pearl Izumi Tour Series event - all part of a plan to eventually secure the Grand Depart of the Tour De France - something the city lost out on to Yorkshire this year.
The city’s Culture and Sport Committee will meet next Tuesday to agree the package, according to The Scotsman.
Committee members will be asked to sanction the three years of funding for the two events - with the hope of hosting a Grand Depart in either 2018 or 2019.
Steve Cardownie, the council’s events champion, said: “From the global exposure of Edinburgh’s cityscape and the boost to local businesses, to encouraging the take up of cycling in the city, the benefits of the event to Edinburgh would be clear to see.
“Edinburgh’s streets have staged many fantastic cycling events in recent years and we are always looking to welcome new events to the city. If the Tour of Britain should go ahead - and prove to be a success - I believe the council would be more than well equipped to bid with partners for part of the Tour de France.”
Recently we reported that there will be no Sky Ride in the Scottish capital this year after Edinburgh City Council declined to offer funding for the event, with the money instead going towards the Pearl Izumi Tour Series bid.
Edinburgh’s first Sky Ride, in September 2012, saw 10,000 cyclists join Sir Chris Hoy a month after his Olympic success in London to ride through the city’s Holyrood Park.
The council put £20,000 towards that event, and says that it made its funding on the understanding that it was a one-off.
Last year saw Edinburgh’s second Sky Ride, organised at short notice with organisers Sky and British Cycling meeting the cost, but according to the Edinburgh Evening News, that event plus Sky Ride Local rides during the year attracted just 350 riders.
Joel Lavery, British Cycling’s national partnerships manager, confirmed that there would be no Sky Ride in Edinburgh this year.
“We ask all our partners to provide financial and other support,” he said. “Edinburgh City Council were not in a position to do this so unfortunately there will be no Sky Ride in Edinburgh this year.
“We understand that they have difficult decisions to make so we are always happy to open up discussions again should circumstances change.”
The original plans for Edinburgh’s failed 2014 Grand Départ bid envisaged a Prologue in the city centre, home to two Unesco World Heritage sites in the shape of the Old Town and the New Town, followed by a road stage.
By the time the final bid, which had the backing of British Cycling, had been submitted, the race was due to start with a road stage heading south from Edinburgh, with two subsequent stages taking the race south via northern England into Wales, then towards the Channel Ports.
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13 comments
Bringing the TdF would be great, I'm a big fan, but I wish they'd shut up about it being to encourage cycling in the city.
Edinburgh just sees ££££ signs and more hi profile coverage leading to more stag group business for those all-important hotel owners and their minimum wage hospitality staff.
The biggest cycle event every year in Edinburgh is the safer infrastructure campaign ride, Pedal on Parliament. I'm hearing the new Leith Walk layout is rubbish, the Quality Bike Corridor is a car park most of its length, and cycling is still for the brave.
TdF for Edinburgh, great, but not as a utility cycling booster.
Sorry, my last comment was in response to HalfWheeler, I can't get the quotes to work for some reason.
I really hope Edinburgh get this. Then they'll HAVE to spend money resurfacing roads- they're in a helluva state!
The tour series worked in Edinburgh, not sure about where a stage race would go though.
After seeing the tour up Holme Moss this year I'd absolutely love to see it in my back yard. A stage finish up the royal mile with a cobbled sprint would be awesome.
Question - at what point do we in Yorkshire spit our dummies out and start rubbishing the Edinburgh bid after all what goes around comes around and fair's fair.
And Westminster won't fund them now theyve had the devolution vote.
I'll bite. Show us your sums pal.
The Grand Depart was uppermost in most people's minds when casting their votes yet they said no. As TDF has now been to the United Kingdom this year it won't be back for a while.
BTW is Gkam on holiday? No first post on this?!
Don't quite follow. What do you mean?
Maybe because the last Edinburgh bid with Westminster backing did all they could to cloud the water and not offer any support to Yorkshire yet threw money at the other bid, some say to bribe Scots even BC got in on the act.
That would be the Edinburgh bid that had stages going through Scotland, England and Wales.
More of a 'British' bid really.
No wonder it had support from Westminster, Scottish Government, Welsh Assembly, British Cycling, UK Sport and VisitBritain. Not sure where your notion of the Scots being bribed comes from. Presumably the Welsh and Northern English were also being bribed at the same time. And bribed to do what exactly? Vote no? I can't ever imagine anyone, even the most two-wheeled fanatic, standing at the ballot box thinking; "well the TdF did come to Edinburgh, should vote no I suppose..."
In the end it went to Yorkshire because ASO didn't want to wait until 2017 or 2018. They wanted to capitalise on the UK cycling boom asap after 2012.
They made the right call, Yorkshire was a roaring success. And if Edinburgh holds it in a few years I'm sure that will be too.
But the whys and wheres and hows are a little bit by the by with some people. They see a fairly innocuous, uncontroversial headline and think; "I can start a bloody good argument with this".
The comment was tongue in cheek & aimed at the nay-sayers from North of the Boarder who spent time on this forum running down the Yorkshire bid & then posting negative comments after Yorkshire had won the bid, if you had looked, I did end the post with the "evil" emoticon to emphasise this.
Personally I would love to see the TdF come back to the UK and think Edinburgh deserves the chance to build on the Grand Depart legacy of Yorkshire. Hopefully, if Edinburgh does win the bid, Phil Liggett will have retired from commentating and stop going on about the "mandatory" London stage like he did this year. All I heard when he was commentating was how great the Cambridge to London stage was, I never heard him mentioned the Grand Depart after the Tour reached Cambridge, what a prat!