British Cycling “killing off” sport and harming smaller events, says organiser of cancelled race after risk assessor demanded “huge, last-minute” £4,000 safety changes

The organiser of a town-centre criterium race has claimed that British Cycling’s “demanding, top-down” approach to risk assessment could harm smaller events and ultimately “kill off” the sport in the UK, after the governing body made a late request for several safety changes to the course, leading to increased costs and, ultimately, the crit’s cancellation.

Earlier this week, Active Fakenham announced that its annual Easter Criterium, which has been held on a closed-road circuit in the Norfolk market town since 2016, had been cancelled, after a risk assessment conducted by a British Cycling official in February “demanded huge changes”, including road repair work and doubling the number of volunteers and crowd control barriers currently deployed by the event.

These proposed alterations, the organisers say, were estimated to cost an additional £4,000, and along with the limited timeframe on offer to implement them made the event “impossible” to run this year.

Active Fakenham Easter Criterium, 2024 (credit: Nick Bowman)

However, in correspondence seen by road.cc, British Cycling has insisted that updated risk assessments for races need to be carried out every 10 years and are a requirement from the governing body’s insurers.

The British Cycling official also noted that it is their responsibility to “ensure that the safety of the riders, spectators, and the general public continues”, even if this comes at an increased cost.

“For a small community group like us, £4,000 is make or break”

The Fakenham crits form part of a wider ‘Easter Sunday Festival’ in the town – which itself forms part of a year-long series of events, including arts and film festivals, duck and raft races, and a cycling sportive – organised by community group Active Fakenham.

Along with the three now-cancelled crit races (for women, men’s National B, and men’s Cat 3 and Cat 4 riders), the active health-focused Easter Sunday Festival traditionally features a UK Athletics-backed 5km running race, a 1km fun run, and a ‘Toddle ‘n’ Trike’ event for children under five, and involves closing the roads used for the circuit between 8am and 7pm.

Active Fakenham Easter Criterium, 2024 (credit: Nick Bowman)

“We are bitterly disappointed that we have had to cancel these exciting and popular races,” the organisers said in a statement this week, confirming that the running and trike events will still go ahead as originally planned.

“We have run these very successful Easter Sunday races with no serious issues or accidents for ten years. They are complex and expensive events for a small group of volunteers, but we have been very proud of how we were able to bring top class cycle racing to Fakenham.

“Safety has been a top priority, and we have risk assessed the course in partnership with British Cycling, local riders, and Active Fakenham officials. We worked with the local authorities, the police, ambulance services and first aiders, bus services, and many local traders to offer a high-quality event. We have around 70 volunteers on the day who are invaluable to making it a success.”

The statement continued: “We were a bit shocked when British Cycling sent a risk assessor from their head office to assess the course only a few weeks before the 2025 races were due to take place. We had worked on the assumption that our previously acceptable risk assessments undertaken in partnership with British Cycling would be rolled on for this year with some updates as has happened in previous years.

“As it turned out the head office risk assessor demanded huge changes. These included mending the roads, more than doubling the number of crowd control barriers, doubling the number of volunteers, covering lampposts and other possible obstacles adjacent to the course, and closing off both sides of the roads round the entire course.

“As well as the logistical challenges we estimate the additional cost would be around £4,000. We have tried hard to see if we can still run the event, but it seems impossible for this year.”

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Speaking to road.cc on Thursday, Active Fakenham organiser Richard Crook said the races’ cancellation this year is a “blow that’s come on top of other things”, including the recent Covid-related demise of the town’s cycling club scene.

Reflecting on the events that led to the crits’ “last-minute” cancellation, Crook said: “It’s the time scale of the whole thing, really. From an organisational point of view, I’d already printed thousands of leaflets, sorted out the website, the social media, and got people ready.

“So, we’d already spent that money. And we’d organised the whole event on the assumption that we’d get some income – around £3,000 from the riders – so we’re losing that money.

“But if we’d gone ahead, it would have cost us another £4,000. Which, if you’re organising the Tour de France, isn’t a lot of money. But for a small community group like us, that’s make or break really.”

A “top-down” approach or ensuring the safety of everyone?

According to Crook, despite believing that the risk assessment carried out every year in advance of the event would be sufficient again in 2025, British Cycling contacted him at the end of January to organise a new evaluation of the course – the conclusions of which were only relayed to the organising team at the end of February, less than two months before the races were due to take place.

Active Fakenham Easter Criterium, 2024 (credit: Nick Bowman)

“The day after Easter Sunday I start organising for the following year. That’s why I wasn’t over the moon when BC came a couple of months before, just as I was going away, and said they wanted to fit in a risk assessment,” he tells road.cc.

“So we did, but they weren’t even going to give me the risk assessment because it would cost them money to do it. They were just going to give me an indication of what it would say – and it’s not easy to plan an event around that either.

“After I pointed this out, they did do the risk assessment, but that was weeks after they’d been around and checked what the situation was. They came around at the end of January, but I didn’t receive the risk assessment until the end of February.

“It’s all been very last minute – but the other thing is that we’ve always been very careful about doing risk assessments, for the run in the morning, the overall event, and I’ve done the risk assessment for the crit in partnership with local British Cycling officials, local riders, and our organisation.

“This whole thing has struck me as very top-down. Risk assessment isn’t a science, there can be some flexibility. And some of what they wanted, I don’t actually agree with. But there was no discussion, it was all very top-down.

“Having said that, things can always be safer. We always have people falling off, but nobody’s ever gone to hospital.”

Crash during Active Fakenham Easter Criterium, women’s race, 2022 (credit: Nick Bowman)

It was this apparent lack of flexibility – and its financial implications – which led Crook to conclude that running this year’s races was unviable.

“I’ve been doing it for 10 years, and the biggest problem has always been crowd control barriers. But I managed to get some funding and bought 125 barriers, and they’re sitting on a farm somewhere,” he says.

“So, I thought we’d got this all sorted out, but the risk assessor came back and said, ‘You’ve got 120, but you need 280’. And crowd control barriers are quite expensive, even if you hire them.

“Then there’s the logistics of setting it all up – we’d have to start at 6am in the morning, instead of eight. I get 70 volunteers out at 8am on Easter Sunday, but would I get them out at six in the morning to set up barriers? I wouldn’t do it.”

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However, according to an email sent to Crook on Thursday morning by British Cycling’s Regional Competition Administrator (RCA) for the area, the renewed, heightened safety standards for Active Fakenham formed part of a wider risk assessment update affecting a range of road race and crit courses across the country.

In the email, the RCA told Crook that the necessity for the updates, which should take place every ten years, boils down to insurance, and the risk of liability for both British Cycling and the race organiser if the risk assessment was found to be out of date in the event of an incident.

“Whilst you indicated in your press release the event had run for 10 years without incident, I have a responsibility to ensure that the safety of the riders, spectators, and the general public continues,” the official said.

“While this may come at an increased cost, this is a requirement from BC insurers. British Cycling has no say in this matter. To maintain the insurance, there are stipulations and they are increasing in number and cost, and BC have to comply to ensure we are covered.”

Unsurprisingly, Crook doesn’t agree with this conclusion.

“He seems to imply that I only did a risk assessment ten years ago, but that’s not true, we do one every year, they’re the bane of my life!” he says.

“They haven’t revived our race, they’ve killed it off!”

Turning his attention to the wider implications of British Cycling’s stance on risk assessments, particularly concerning smaller races, Crook continued: “I think the real danger with this approach is you’ll only end up with major events left. It’ll be increasingly commercialised, and it will marginalise and exclude local enthusiasts like us. It could help kill off cycling – and it certainly won’t do cycling any good.”

Active Fakenham Easter Criterium, women’s race, 2023 (credit: Warwick Jones)

Of course, preventing the UK’s flagging domestic bike racing scene from being killed off has proved one of British Cycling’s trickiest assignments in recent years, as teams and races continue to fall by the wayside due to increasing financial and logistical pressures.

In August 2023, the governing body set up its first-ever Elite Road Racing Task Force in an attempt to “innovate and energise” local racing in Britain.

Chaired by triple Olympic champion Ed Clancy, during its first year the task force engaged with more than 250 people across the sport in the UK to consider the composition of the elite national calendar, the challenges facing the rapidly dwindling number of domestic teams, and opportunities to grow the reach and profile of local races.

However, fewer than half of the 16 broad recommendations set out by the group in January 2024 have been implemented so far, despite British Cycling’s hopes of “immediate progress”.

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And Crook is typically forthright in his own assessment of British Cycling’s attempts to revive road racing in the UK.

“They haven’t revived our race, they’ve killed it off!” he exclaims, before offering up some possible solutions.

“There are things they could be doing. They could be saying, ‘right, we’ve done this risk assessment, we’ve identified issues, can we help you sort them out?’

“They could act as more of a co-ordinating body,” he notes, pointing out that another crit, held in the village of Ixworth on May’s Bank Holiday Monday, has been experiencing similar risk assessment issues this year.

“They’re doing it, and we’re doing it, but we’re all acting in isolation. So I rang them up, and they said they needed more barriers, and I said I had loads sitting on a farm, and they could use them. But British Cycling should be facilitating smaller clubs and geographical areas to work together more, co-ordinating, linking up, and sharing. Instead, what they’re doing is making these demands.

“It does seem very top-down, do it or don’t do it. And the regional officials – who have been very good to work with – have also been given bigger and bigger areas, and can do less and less for individual events.

“There are management and structural issues, and financial issues as well, I’m sure. But I don’t think they’re doing anything to help – they’ve cut the local resources, and they just seem focused on the big events.

“I don’t think things are more dangerous, maybe they’re just perceived to be more dangerous now, there’s more litigation, and standards have gone up. My race hasn’t got more dangerous, it’s got less dangerous in the last ten years, because we’re more experienced in running it and we know where the issues are.

“Yet it’s been cancelled because of a risk assessment that said it’s more dangerous!”

Active Fakenham Easter Criterium, 2024 (credit: Nick Bowman)

So, where does Crook and the Active Fakenham Easter crits go from here?

“I think it’s unlikely it will go ahead next year, we’ll have to re-assess,” the organiser admits.

“I’ll have to look at both the financial and logistical issues of it all, and whether I’ve got the energy for it. I’ve been retired now for a few years, and if you look around at the people who volunteer at bike races – we’re all getting older.”

road.cc contacted British Cycling for comment on Wednesday, but is yet to receive a response.