Council agrees to underwrite next year's Tour de Yorkshire by up to £100,000

In a ‘difficult’ decision, taken under emergency powers, after the council was forced to cancel all meetings until the end of the month, because of high numbers of officers and councillors with Covid or self-isolating, the council also renewed its intention to put forward Skipton as one of the eight host towns.

The decision was taken by chief executive, Paul Shevlin, following a two and a half hour meeting with Policy Committee members which also included a presentation by James Mason, chief executive of Welcome to Yorkshire.

The £100,00 will be used to underwrite the four day event, which is due to take place at the end of April and early May, 2022, while Welcome to Yorkshire seeks corporate sponsorship.

Mr Shevlin said: “Before making the decision I had a consultation meeting with the councillors who would have sat on Policy Committee, due to be held last week.

“It was a long meeting and provoked a lengthy and thought-provoking debate including a candid presentation from James Mason.

“During the course of the meeting, members gave me a very clear steer as to what their decision would have been had the report been taken to committee. A large majority supported the event.”

Council leader, Councillor Richard Foster said: “This was a difficult decision to take. We know that the Tour de Yorkshire has divided opinion across the district, but the majority of members were clear that the race needed to be supported because of the long-term benefits it brings.

"This isn’t just about supporting the race on the day; it is about making an economic investment in our area. The coverage showcases our beautiful countryside and towns. Tourism is incredibly important to Craven and although the domestic market is strong this year we need to be looking ahead when we will be competing again with overseas locations and trying to attract international travellers."

He added: "We know the event brings in new visitors and even attracts people to come and make their home here. The Yorkshire festival planned to run in the build up to the race will be a great marketing opportunity especially for the newly refurbished Skipton Town Hall.

"Whenever the race passes through there is always great sense of community and the race will be part of our post Covid recovery in bringing communities back together again.”

Green Party member, Cllr Andy Brown, later said he was “strongly in favour” of attracting new cycling and community events.

He said: “There are serious long-term benefits in economic development to an event like this which changes people’s perspectives on where they might take their future holidays or locate a small business.

“It will be important that the event continues to develop as a community attraction. The community needs opportunities to come together after recent experiences and it was great to see this event get broad cross party support.”

Several Yorkshire councils have already provided similar support which has prompted questions over why investments are being made into a private company instead of much-needed public services.

Cllr Andy Solloway, leader of the Independent group on Craven District Council, said the £100,000 agreed by the authority could have been better spent on infrastructure improvements.

He said: “One of the issues I have is that attracting cyclists to come to the area, as well as attracting more tourists, will only exacerbate the conflicts that happen between cyclists and drivers.

“Vehicles are getting bigger, there are more of them. Even if they are electric vehicles. Our road infrastructure in Craven hasn’t got much bigger to cope with it.

“Although £100,000 won’t go that far in terms of Highways improvements, I’d rather the money be spent on making things safer for all road users.”

Welcome to Yorkshire is planning a county wide ‘Festival of Yorkshire’ to take place in the weeks before the race.

The TdY will be the ‘headline act’ in a celebration of the whole county highlighting local food and drink, arts, culture, heritage, and music. It will be the first and largest non-ticketed mass participation event of its kind in the UK since the pandemic in 2020.

The council says the event and underwriting costs are to be delivered from budgets already allocated; the remaining budget - £173,575, originally approved in 2019; £125,000 set aside from the allocated North and West Yorkshire Business Rates Pool for TdY from 2019/20, and funding originally committed by YDNPA as long as the race route take in large parts of the Yorkshire Dales.