Hello all,
It’s with a very heavy heart that I write to say the race won’t be happening in January despite the best efforts of everyone involved.
The short story is we found out earlier the venue is not available at all and there are no further alternatives.
The longer story is that the original area where we have the start/finish, parking and HQ building was being used to house entitled people and their families who helped the British army and other government departments overseas (and therefore have every right to remain in the UK and be helped to settle). Bear in mind the entire venue and part of the route are all on MOD land.
We then made alternative arrangements with the barracks for parking and toilets etc. and had the course remeasured with the new route and start/finish. The barracks were extremely accommodating and tried everything to make sure the race happened. This was already Plan B/C territory.
Unfortunately, they found out earlier today that the alternative provided venue and area is now going to be used to house more people so won’t be available for use at all. This was a ministerial decision made much higher up and out of anyone’s hands.
In life things happen and you adapt and things happen and you change again, but there becomes a point when something becomes unviable and that’s the current situation we’ve been dealt. These are quite exceptional circumstances that couldn’t have been foreseen.
We don’t know when the venue will be available again so I can’t offer an alternative date at this point in time either.
As you can imagine I am quite disappointed and sorry to let you all down. The race had promised to be the best one yet with an increased entry limit, fantastic depth and more prize money. I’ve been race director since it first started in 2018 and was going to stop once I reached number 7 which this should have been – not so lucky after all then.
Unless you don’t want to be contacted in future (please do say), we will email to let you know when the next race will happen again as a courtesy.
You are welcome to ask any questions which I will try and answer, though I hope the above is comprehensive enough.
Nobody has paid any entry fee at all yet.
Hopefully you are all having a better day than I am… it’s not every day I have to disappoint nearly 500 people, but I wanted to let you all know as soon as possible so you can enter other races.
I wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy new year, and best of luck with your training and racing in 2024.
Thanks,
James