The Friends were lucky enough to have a City of York representative, Liz Topi, at the most recent Friends’ meeting, and she summarised what was known so far, as far as the Tour de France is concerned.
The Park will be one of 3 ‘hubs’ for activities on the day (6th July), including a big screen showing the Grand Depart in the morning and probably something like a family-friendly sing-along film in the afternoon. Local charities will be offered space for stalls, and there will be food offerings. There will be no alcohol licence in the park. There will be a site manager for the Park, and a health and safety manager.
Outside the park itself, camping pitches will be offered either side of the Millennium Bridge (booked and supervised by the Caravan Club), although if there are few takers not all the campsites will run. Additional toilets etc will be provided for campers (available to the public as well).
Liz could not be more specific about some aspects, because no-one could know how things would go. It is thought there will between 80,000 and 180,000 extra people in York that weekend. Roads will be closed from 3am Sunday, until about midday and then Bishopthorpe Road traders intend to close the road for a street party from midday. All 4 road bridges within the ring road will be closed. All leave has been cancelled for emergency services, with 1000s of volunteers being trained as helpers, by Asda.
There is an additional open meeting on April 10th 5.30pm at the Park Café, to allow further discussion of the Tour de France plans.
