Residents anger at Rochdale Half Marathon road closures

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The inaugural Rochdale Half Marathon gets under way

Residents living on The Cray, Milnrow have made complaints following a number of road closures due to the inaugural Rochdale Half Marathon event on Sunday (23 August).

The event saw over 1,200 people take to the roads of Rochdale to run the event, which meant several road closures were put in place throughout the morning.

http://www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-headlines/97668/1200-hit-the-streets-to-run-rochdale

Residents living on the estate say that the estate was “completely blocked in throughout the entire event”.

One resident who contacted Rochdale Online said: “Shame on the council.! As a resident of The Cray, Milnrow, I want to express my deep anger towards the council for the organisation of the marathon event. The estate I live on was completely blocked throughout the entire event and no vehicles were allowed in or out. This is an absolute disgrace and whoever passed this off needs their heads looking at.”

Kimberly Winter, who also lives on the estate, said: “The roads were blocked off surrounding The Cray so that people could not get out to work or off of the estate because of the half marathon. Had we been forgotten or did they not give a thought to the people that were housebound because of this?

Are the people who planned this event going to give people the money back that they would have earnt had they be able to get to work?

“This is outrageous. I personally couldn’t take my two children to Smith Hills Farm, which was planned.

"We all knew that the half marathon was taking place and that’s fine, but never in a million years would we have thought that they would have blocked off all of the routes out of The Cray estate.”

Kimberly also contacted the police about the issue and states that she was told that the council could not keep residents on the estate.

She added: “The police were called in the end and agreed that they could not keep us on the street and stopped the runners briefly to let us past, so we did get to the farm in the end. However, prior to the police being called, residents that were trying to pass were being threatened with committing road traffic offences and prosecution.

"Absolutely horrendous. They told my neighbour that if she wanted to go anywhere, get the tram as it’s not their problem.”

A spokesperson for Rochdale Borough Council said: “The inaugural Rochdale Half Marathon was a tremendous success with hundreds of participants enjoying a well-organised event. A race of this scale will inevitably cause some disruption wherever the route is situated, but closing the roads made it a lot safer. Careful consideration went into the route and a two lap, ‘out and back’ course helped to minimise disruption on major roads.

“The event only impacted some residents for one Sunday morning and we opened roads as soon as we were able to. We also wrote to everyone affected beforehand to ensure they had enough notice to make any necessary arrangements. Emergency vehicles had access at all times.

“We realise that some people may have been frustrated at this but many others really engaged with the event by either taking part, or showing their support as a spectator.”