The Harrogate Informer online survey has attracted 2268 responses in the first 24 hours.
The survey has indicated that 16% of business respondents had an increased turnover and 84% saying it made no difference or turnover was down.
60% thought there was a longer term economic benefit.
69% believe that Harrogate Borough Council were right to support the event and 62% would like to see more cycle races in the town.
Did you watch in person ?
- Yes – 1,619 72%
- No – 622 28%
Did you watch on TV ?
- Yes – 1,770 79%
- No – 464 21%
Did you enjoy the event ?
- Yes – 1,610 72%
- No – 617 28%
How was the traffic management ?
- Badly – 585 26%
- OK – 774 35%
- Well – 884 39%
Were the closures as advertised ?
- No – 748 33%
- Yes – 1,746 77%
Were Harrogate Borough Council right to bring the event to the town ?
- No – 683 31%
- Yes – 1541 69%
If you run a business…
- My turnover was much higher – 60 8%
- My turnover was higher – 62 8%
- It made no difference – 210 28%
- My turnover was lower – 118 16%
- My turnover was much lower – 303 40%
Do you think there will be longer term economic gain ?
- Yes – 1,337 60%
- No – 878 40%
Would you like more cycle races in the town ?
- Yes – 1370 62%
- No – 847 38%
How was the communication about the event ?
- Good – 1067 48%
- Poor – 485 22%
- Average – 670 30%
About where you live
- Harrogate or Knaresborough – 1675 75%
- In the wider Harrogate District – 317 14%
- Outside the Harrogate District – 244 11%
In the freeform text response, many asked for more music events and more use of the Stray.
In response to what was good, there were comments about the community support in the villages on the route and the visibility it brought to the town on media.
Comments were more diverse in response to what was bad about the event, there were comments about damage to the Stray, inconvenience, lost trade, bad weather and not many people being in the town centre.
How can you headline a stat of 84% of businesses said they were unaffected or lower?!?!?
The more relevant stat here is 56% of business had reduced trade, 40% significantly lower.
Why ask for feedback if you want to manipulate the figures. Once again whilst everyone is entitled to an opinion, unless you’re opinion is pro cycling then there is no interest in your opinion at all.
Have a proper vote to the people and businesses of the town – we have a population in the borough of 160,000, you’ve got feedback from 1.4%
Ive left many comments on the event and the moderators havent published them. That makes a mockery of the freedom of speech and press. You have manipulated feedback to make the event sound better than it was.
Aside from that the equation between roax and traffic is a no brainer to start with. Therefore why put on such an event
Have to agree with the above – the (small) business community – the lifeblood of this town – are stating they have been adversely affected – please listen. Just because a number of respondents who presumably have nice corporate jobs – ‘enjoyed the event’ does not make it a success economically
Poor communication of closures of roads with inconsistent signage on some roads Rip off pricing for park and ride. Terrible damage to the Stray. Lots of businesses lost money and outweigh those that benefitted. Yet the representative from Welcome to Yorkshire ( or Yorkshire 2019 or whatever it is now called) keeps making glib comments about a minority affected and blaming locals for not going into Harrogate, whilst bleating on about longer term benefits.
Bizarre way of presenting stats, adding no difference in with lower turnover – implies there was not much negativity when actually 56% of businesses reported lower turnover.
As to the long lasting effect it’s a well known fact that people demonstrate over optimism in situations such as this. It was not in my view a high profile event in the media and Harrogate got very little coverage, over and above the odd namecheck.
Have to agree with all of the above let’s hope the rest of the roads get mended even with no cycle race to prompt it and Harrogate Hospital gets more staff even with no cycle race I was in A&E on Monday night 4 hours and witnessed some very distressing incidents with elderly bleeding lots having fallen and left in A&E to sit for 2 hours because short of staff.
Your statistics are totally false,how anyone can say that the road closures caused minimum disruption are delusional.Some roads are still closed and it is 4 days after the event,these statistics are to make Harrogate Borough Council look good,they have made a terrible decision on this bike race,firstly by not considering the residents at all,and by causing massive damage to the stray,and its all been for financial gain.will all the residents and small business,s be compensated,,I very much doubt it…!!!!!