ORGANISERS of Velo Birmingham have responded to fears from local residents regarding the many issues surrounding Sunday’s event.

The 100-mile sportive will see around 15,000 cyclists taking to the streets of Halesowen, Stourbridge and the surrounding areas to raise money for a number of charities and good causes.

People living along the route have raised major concerns on the race, as hundreds of roads are being closed for a number of hours on Sunday and some residents are becoming increasingly worried about being trapped in their properties or prevented from accessing them.

The News sat down with Jon Ridgeon, executive chairman of CSM Active, organisers of the event, and put residents’ concerns to him.

The former British 110m hurdler said: “I’ve got absolute sympathy for people who are being inconvenienced. The reality of big events like this inevitably causes some inconvenience and it’s tough on those people and I get that.

“We’ve worked hard at mitigating those concerns and finding solutions to all those access issues and we’ve often succeeded, but not in every case.

“We’ve worked hard at informing people, but you could always do more, and we’ve learnt lots of lessons for when we hopefully do it again next year.

“We’ll do even more next year, but we’ve thrown a lot at it and year one big events are always the toughest.

“You look at any big event around the country, Ride London or Velothon Wales for example, all those faced lots of challenges in their first year and I’m convinced that the vast majority of people – not everyone obviously – after Sunday brings communities together and raises lots of money for charities, will go ‘in balance, that’s a good event’.

“That is what’s happened at our other events, so all we can do now is stage a good event on Sunday and hopefully everyone will see the positives.

“They’ll be some people that are inevitably against it and have good reason for it, especially if it’s causing them a real inconvenience, and that’s unfortunate.

“But all I’ll do is ask people to do is look at the bigger picture and the many, many positives an event like this creates, from economic to profile, charity to encouraging cycling and getting communities together.

“There are so many positives an event like this creates, like just over half of our riders are from outside of the Midlands so we are introducing all of those people and their families and friends to a beautiful part of the UK and they will visit again.

“There will be a lot of medium and long-term advantages.

“But I don’t for a moment forget that we are inconveniencing people on Sunday and I much prefer we weren’t but that’s the reality.

“I think people will be taken aback on Sunday and really get behind it in future years.

“I think we all could have done more but this is a massive undertaking – its three years in the making – Sunday will happen, Sunday will be a great success and can it be better next year? Absolutely.

“One of the reasons this event was created was to encourage more people in the West Midlands to take up cycling and get active.

“The more we can do around that the better.”

Roads affected in the Halesowen and Stourbridge areas will be closed from 6am until 11am. Surrounding areas such as Kinver, Stourton and Wall Heath face closures from 7am until 1.30pm, and roads in Clent, Belbroughton and Romsley areas will be closed from 9am until 5.15pm.

Residents and business owners based on or near the route are urged to visit www.velobirmingham.com/the-route/road-closures to check the updated road closure timings and how best to navigate around them.

Anyone concerned about bus route diversions should check out www.networkwestmidlands.com/campaigns/velo-cycling-event. Stourbridge Junction railway will still be open but will only be accessible from the Rufford Road overspill car park and walk-way.

CSM Active has stressed emergency services vehicles will be operating as usual and the public should use normal protocol in the case of an emergency.