Overview:
The Women’s Tour is the UK’s first international road cycling stage race for women, bringing together the world’s top riders to compete in Great Britain as a part of the UCI Women’s WorldTour. The race attracts an annual roadside audience of 300,000, as well as over three million fans through TV, radio, and online platforms. The multi-stage event typically takes place over six days, encompassing some of the most scenic roads in the country, with Marianne Vos, Lizzie Deignan and Demi Vollering amongst the well-known riders to have been previously crowned the tour winner. In October 2021, Marlborough Highways was tasked with project managing the Essex leg of the Women’s Tour, in partnership with the race organisers and Southend-on-Sea City Council, with just two weeks’ notice to prepare.
The Challenge
The 2021 edition of the Women’s Tour took place 4 – 9 October and included a challenging 117km leg in south Essex. Setting off from East Beach in Shoebury, dozens of international competitors took part in the three-hour race, which concluded with an exciting sprint finish on the seafront at West Cliff in Southend-on-Sea. Riders were joined by support vehicles, police cars and broadcast teams, with thousands of spectators lining the route. Organisers needed a dependable and trusted traffic team, to manage more than 70 roads in and around Southend-on-Sea on the day of the event. With just two-weeks’ notice, Marlborough was asked to devise and implement a complex schedule of road closures across 10km of the designated racecourse. Disruption to residents and road users had to be kept to a minimum, with the safety and wellbeing of competitors, organisers, and the public being the number one priority.
The Solution
Given the short timeframes, Marlborough’s expert Traffic Management team devoted a huge amount of time and resources into developing a succinct road closure strategy, with numerous meetings and site visits conducted ahead of the race day. In the two weeks leading up to the Women’s Tour, signage was set up along the route, advising road users of the potential disruption to their journey.
Two high-spec Impact Protection Vehicles were brought to Southend-on-Sea, with multiple traffic teams deployed to different locations throughout the day, with the need to quickly and safely close roads, before reopening them at a moment’s notice, as the competitors moved on. This included temporarily diverting traffic away from the busy seafront and the major A127 and A13 routes, with operatives placed at every junction. As well as directing road users, Marlborough’s marshals needed to assist film crews, work closely with the emergency services, and act as an important point of information for members of the public. The event was hugely successful, with congestion kept to a minimum and organisers praised for the efficient running of the day.
Fact File
Client Southend-on-Sea City Council
Date 8 October 2021
Duration One day event with 2 weeks planning
Value £15,000
Project
- The Traffic Management of 72 roads spanning a 10km route
- Time critical road closures and their reopening
- Providing advanced road closure notices
- Parking suspensions
Team
- 1 Project Manager
- 1 Supervisor
- Services Director
- 25 Traffic Management Operatives
Client savings
- Marlborough liaised with local stakeholders and emergency services to ensure that the event ran smoothly and to a tight schedule.
- As the long-term contractor to Southend-on-Sea City Council, Marlborough had expert knowledge of the road network and traffic management system in and around the race route.
Quotes
“I just personally wanted to say thank you for everything you have provided for the Women’s Tour event and how you and your operatives stepped up today. We couldn’t have asked for more from your team.”
Spencer Thatcher-Gray, Service Manager, Southend-on-Sea City Council
“It’s been a great race. Really well organised and great to see the crowds out. The UK has put on a good show and the weather’s behaved itself!”
Sophie Wright, Women’s Tour competitor
“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.”
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