Overview:
In May 2022 Marlborough Highways was responsible for the traffic management of the inaugural Barking BikeFest at Abbey Green in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. They were also tasked with installing and then removing a temporary racetrack on the roads surrounding the green, creating a 1.2km circuit. With thousands of attendees and hundreds of competitors, it was vital that the event took place in a safe, enjoyable, and orderly fashion, with disruption to the local community needing to be kept to a minimum.
The Challenge
The Tour Series is a fun, fast and free cycling event that takes place in town and city centres across the UK. The series sees Britain’s best male and female riders compete against each other in a unique team-based format, with Laura Kenny, Dani Rowe and Ed Clancy amongst the household names that have previously taken part. For the first time in three years the tour descended on the capital in May 2022, when the perimeter of Abbey Green in Barking was converted into a specially designed race circuit.
The Tour Series London leg formed part of the Barking BikeFest, in which amateur cyclists of all ages and abilities, were able to take part in separate community races alongside the professional competition, with prizes and medals given away in every category. In addition, the festival comprised live music from a band stand, BMX and mountain bike displays, a kids area featuring live entertainment, and the ‘Electric Avenue’ zone, showcasing green technology including e-bikes and electric cars. The organisers required a trusted partner to assistant manage the event logistics, with the safety and well-being of festivalgoers the number one priority.
The Solution
As the contractor responsible for the setting up the racecourse, managing road closures and marshalling the routes into the festival site, Marlborough conducted extensive pre-planning in partnership with the event organisers and Barking and Dagenham Council. The roads used for the race circuit were resurfaced ahead of the event, with the works carried out at weekends to reduce disruption to residents and local businesses. The community was given advanced warning of the road closures and a strict schedule of works was devised, ensuring that the event set up and dismantle was carried out quickly and efficiently.
Working with local stakeholders, Marlborough operatives in high-visibility uniforms were fully briefed ahead of the event, so that they could manage the flow of cars, bicycles, and pedestrians in an effective manner. Throughout the day, friendly staff were on hand to provide the public, competitors and onsite broadcast teams filming the event, with the information and assistance they needed, to ensure that everybody had a safe and enjoyable experience.
Fact File
Client Barking and Dagenham Council
Date 21 May 2022
Duration One day event with 2 months planning
Value: £25,000 excluding resurfacing works
Project
- Managing road closures
- Resurfacing of the roads used for the race ahead of the event
- Converting perimeter roads into a temporary racecourse
- Marshalling the perimeter of the event
- Removing all race props and quickly reopening the roads after the festival
Team
- 1 Project Manager
- 1 Supervisor
- 24 Traffic Management Operatives
Client savings
- Marlborough liaised with local stakeholders to ensure that market traders and other business owners had the necessary access they needed throughout.
- As the long-term contractor to Barking and Dagenham Council, Marlborough had expert knowledge of the road network and traffic management system in and around the festival site.
Quote from client
“I would like to thank you and your team for your efforts, the crews were professional, courteous, and hard working all day and ensured the event went without a hitch. You and the team were a credit to the company, demonstrating commitment and support to the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham.”
Nick Davies, Specialist Services Manager, Barking and Dagenham Council
“One of the things I value most is their very collaborative and transparent team culture. It makes a big difference to have a contractor that wants to work closely with us and is supportive and responsive. With Marlborough, I get a team who are attentive, work collaboratively and honestly with me and don’t lose focus on delivering first class communications and compliance.”
“From the design stage, Marlborough has been fundamental in delivering the Broad Lane Square improvements scheme. During the works, not only did the team manage to keep to the programme, but they went the extra mile to ensure attention to detail and came up with innovative solutions to address issues encountered on site. My thanks on behalf of Haringey goes out to Marlborough for their dedication to deliver.”
“Working alongside our Term Service Contractor Marlborough Highways, we successfully completed renovations to the Crowstone Footbridge. The designs were provided by Marlborough, and the work was unique. The scheme was completed to budget and ahead of its programme duration.”
“I would like to thank you and your team for your efforts, the Marlborough crews were professional, courteous, and hard working all day and ensured the event went without a hitch. You and the team were a credit to the company, demonstrating commitment and support to the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham.”
“I just wanted to say what a pleasure it has been to work with Marlborough Highways over the last six months. The quality of work is superb, and there has been some excellent collaboration between Milestone and Marlborough to complete, what at times, has been quite a challenging scheme. I hope to work with Marlborough on another project in the near future.”
“Marlborough worked with us in constructing a 1.3km cycle track. There were a number of technical difficulties to overcome, and their gifted foreman worked to propose some innovative solutions to the challenges we faced. The result is a facility that the locals are proud of, providing walkers and cyclists with alternative access to the hospital and nearby school. The scheme was a lot of hard work, but well worth it.”
“Marlborough attracts people who take care and have pride in their work. Several gangs of Operatives worked tirelessly for six months to reconstruct drainage networks, lay more than 3km of high quality bespoke granite kerbs and granite channels blocks to ensure positive drainage. The technical compliance, attention to detail and level of quality finish along the entire carriageway was exceptional”.
“We saw huge benefits in appointing Marlborough as our full service contractor and we’re impressed – they’ve delivered consistent high quality service and superior quality control across every project. Marlborough, provide us with a ‘one-stop’ shop solution – we get the same quality of service and better control across all aspects of the project.”
Please see our privacy notice for more information on how Marlborough Highways Ltd take care of your details.