Member Article

Cycling festival brings £1m boost for the Town that Refused to Die

A successful festival that brought top international cyclists and up to 10,000 visitors to Consett in June has boosted the area’s economy by more than £1m.

And now the Town that Refused to Die is considering ideas for a special 2020 festival to tie in with the 40th anniversary of the closure of the steelworks.

This year’s event on 23 June built on the popular annual Tour of the Reservoir by extending the race so competitors started in the town centre – and returned there for a nail-biting finish.

Local people and visitors who came to cheer the 200 professional competitors enjoyed a free street party organised by Project Genesis, which has been helping to revive the area’s fortunes for 25 years.

“The event was a bigger success than we’d ever imagined – and as well as providing a great day out, it provided a real uplift to local businesses,” said John O’Connor, Project Genesis Chair.

“With around 1,000 cyclists and supporters packing into the town, and plenty of visitors on the day, our businesses from B&Bs to food outlets and shops all reaped the benefit – two pubs actually ran out of beer.”

International coverage

The event also gave international TV viewers a glimpse of the beautiful Derwentside landscape and challenging hill climbs, thanks to backing by British Cycling that ensured Eurosport coverage.

“The Tour of the Reservoir has been organised by Mike Hodgson for many years, and has always been a popular fixture on the cycling calendar,” said Trust development director Trustee Mike Clark.

“Building a festival around it was one of the ways we are celebrating the revival of Consett. We now see a fantastic further opportunity in 2020 to show just how far we’ve come since the dark days 40 years ago when the steelworks closed.

“Consett is well-known as the Town that Refused to Die – and we feel we have a great reason to celebrate the perseverance, hard work and sheer grit that local people have shown in regenerating the town over the past four decades.

“With other towns around the UK going through their own grim industrial times right now, we feel we can show exactly what can be done with the right spirit and strategy.”

British Cycling support

The town will shortly welcome British Cycling Commercial Director Jonathan Rigby on a visit to celebrate the success of the 2019 festival.

John O’Connor said: “British Cycling were tremendously supportive of the festival this year, and Jonathan wrote to us afterwards to say how pleased they were with the event.

“We had enormous support from many other sources, too. This included patronage by top Paralympian gold medal-winning cyclist Dame Sarah Storey, from MP Sir Alan Campbell and by Dean Richards and Alex Tait of Newcastle Falcons - and importantly, local councillors who supported the event financially.”

The Tour of the Reservoir went down well with the professional sportsmen and women who took part.

In a thankyou message after the event, one team said their top-notch racer: “really enjoyed the racing and loved the event – she thought it was brutal and will definitely be back!”

Steelworks anniversary

Project Genesis and the Tour of the Reservoir organisers are hoping British Cycling will give their backing to an even bigger event next year.

“We’ve got all sorts of ideas to extend the festival so it includes everyone including local schools, outlying villages and sports enthusiasts of every level of ability – as well as the elite athletes who come to take part in the gruelling Tour,” said John.

“We feel the area thoroughly deserves this kind of positive attention.

“The steelworks closed on the 12th of September 1980 and people thought Consett would just dry up and blow away. But look at us now – four decades on, our town and the area are absolutely thriving.

“It’s time to put a national and international focus on Derwentside as a beautiful and vibrant place not only to live and work, but to visit and stay, too.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Adrienne Hunter .