​Cycling’s Tour o’ the Borders could be nearing end of road, fear organisers

​This year’s tour will go ahead as planned in September, albeit following a different route to those used in the past, but it might well be the last, according to Neil Dalgleish, director of Hillside Outside, the Peebles company that runs the event.

Though the tour, first staged in 2012, is popular with cyclists, regularly attracting as many as 2,000 entries, other Borderers are less enthusiastic about the road closures involved since 2014, sparking regular complaints and even occasional protests.

Those objections have led to officials at Scottish Borders Council refusing to sanction further tours in 2024 or 2025 unless an amended route can be agreed.

“Our tenth closed-road edition of the tour on Sunday, September 3, will be a bittersweet affair,” said Dalgleish.

“On one hand, it promises to be the best route ever, but on the other we now know the event will not take place in 2024 and its future remains very unclear beyond that.

“Scottish Borders Council has called a halt to running the event on closed roads next year in response to requests from a group of residents unhappy about the tour’s road closures.

“We know the event causes inconvenience around the route, and we’re very grateful that most people accept that it’s only once a year and adopt a live-and-let-live attitude. After all, the event brings many positives with it too.

“Over the years, we’ve tried very hard to mitigate problems where they exist. We have already changed both the route and the date twice to address local concerns.

“Roads are reopened as soon as the last cyclist is past and almost always ahead of schedule.

“The council’s decision follows consultation with Ettrick and Yarrow Community Council. We’ve been aware of event-related inconvenience issues in this area for several years, so, of course, we asked to be part of this new consultation. We also asked for a new working group to be formed to address the issues, but both these requests were unsuccessful.

“We also know there is, conversely, some strong support for the event in this area. That’s plain from the number of local people who cheer the riders as they pass their homes and the residents who have let us know in person.

“It’s a beautiful part of the world and we’ve happily helped showcase why it’s a magnet for cycling.

“We have no data on the level of discontent our event causes and have only heard from a small number of individuals, but it’s worth noting that the last survey carried out in the community in 2016 showed majority support amongst the local population.

“In a wider context, a public survey by the council in 2021 asked if the public were supportive of the event and 87% were very supportive or supportive. Only 11.6% were not supportive.

“A decision has been made and, from our perspective, it seems out of balance and unfair.

“We understand the council want to keep all communities happy, but in the real world it’s a hard challenge.

“Some people in Ettrick and Yarrow may be pleased with this outcome, but for us the reality is actual job losses and a threat to our entire events programme.

“For local hotels and tourism businesses, it also means loss of income – not only for the event weekend but also for the repeat or pre-event visits we know many riders make.

“We’re talking about a few hours of road closures once a year for an event that generates millions of pounds in visitor income and has done much to put the Borders on the road-cycling map.”

Though happy with the amended 75-mile route agreed this year, Dalgleish has ruled out other compromises suggested by council officials, saying: “The council have said they would potentially allow a closed-road event in another area, perhaps in 2024 or beyond, but it’s proved impossible for anyone to find a suitable, workable alternative route from the Peebles area.

“Moving the whole event to another town, as the council hoped, is not possible either. Nowhere outside the Tweed Valley has anything like the overnight capacity we have here, and then there’s the challenge of getting 2,000 people to the same start line from their accommodation, avoiding road closures, at roughly the same time.

“Anyway, we want to provide a beautiful event in classic cycling terrain – that’s the whole point of the event. Just because the council are willing to allow a closed-road sportive somewhere deemed more convenient, if such a place could ever be found, does not mean cyclists would want to take part in it.

“Worse still is the implied message that perhaps the Borders does not actually care too much about cycling or cyclists. This would certainly be at odds with the council’s own cycling and event strategies, and it certainly does not, in our opinion, represent local attitudes. The vast majority of us regard our homeland as a very cycling-friendly region.

“This is a huge disappointment. The Tour o’ the Borders has played a key role in putting the south of Scotland on the map as a road-cycling destination over the last decade. It has been the Borders’ biggest mass-participation sports event for several years, regularly attracting around 2,000 participants and providing an economic boost for many hospitality businesses in our region.

“Right now, we don’t know what the longer-term future holds for the Tour o’ the Borders, but we do know that we’ll do everything to make our 2023 event something special.

“We have accommodated Scottish Borders Council and Ettrick and Yarrow Community Council’s request to stage the event on a partly-new route and what a cracker it’s going to be.

“The amended 120km route will take riders into the wilder reaches of southern Scotland, with highlights including the Devil’s Beeftub, the historic town of Moffat, Grey Mare’s Tail, Loch of the Lowes and St Mary’s Loch.

“The famous climb of Talla Wall features in the shorter 88km version of the route, but there are some epic climbs in both. Scotland’s most beautiful closed-road sportive just got even more beautiful.

“We hope you can join us and let’s make it a big peloton for what could be the final closed-road outing of the tour.”

​Council officials insist they’re happy for the tour to continue – but only if the event’s organisers are open to the same sort of compromise agreed for this year’s edition.

A spokesperson for Scottish Borders Council said: “The council has been in active discussions with the event organiser for some time about the concerns of residents and businesses affected by the road closures, along the traditional Tour o’ the Borders route, and we welcome the amendments made to the route for this year’s event.

“An agreement was reached last year which established that the council would not permit the event to take place on the same closed roads as the 2022 route in either 2024 or 2025 but would allow it to return in 2026.

“Throughout the discussions, we have encouraged the event organiser to consider establishing an entirely different route.

“This would not only alleviate the impact on the communities that have had to deal with road closures year in, year out but also, hopefully, encourage more participants to take on a new challenge and spread the associated economic benefits to other areas of the Borders.

“In addition to putting forward the suggestion of a closed-road event elsewhere in the region, we had also advised the event organiser that we would be supportive of the event continuing on the established route but on open roads, again to mitigate some of the communities’ concerns regarding road closures, or for the 2023 event route to be used again.

“The council has supported the Tour o’ the Borders event for many years through the safety advisory group process, engagement with communities and facilitation of the necessary road closures, all at no cost.

“We will continue to engage with the event organiser to seek to find a solution which enables this popular event to take place in 2024 and which supports our communities and appropriately balances the economic benefits with the disruption to residents and businesses.”

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