RONDJE NOORDZEE
Evening Gazette
24 juli 2001
Colchester: Plea over cycling event
The organiser of a 6,000-kilometre cycling event has called on Colchester to do more for the riders.
Colchester is the first destination for the UK stretch of this year's North Sea Cycle Route.
The riders will arrive in Harwich and spend the night in Colchester. A meeting with Colchester's mayor, Christopher Garnett, has been arranged.
But Colchester Council officers have said that with a grand reception in Harwich already arranged it would be a waste of resources having another civic reception in Colchester.
Anthony Wright, the route's Anglia co-ordinator, has asked for more things to be arranged for the riders when they arrive in Colchester.
He said: "I will be going to meet the cyclists at Harwich and I don't want to have to say to them there's nothing here for them to see. It's one of the largest towns in Essex and the only major centre we will go through in Essex.
"We are trying to promote the whole region to the riders and I don't want Colchester to miss this opportunity. In Suffolk everyone has bent over backwards to provide facilities." But Karen Elmer, the council's marketing and tourism officer, said they were pleased to offer information and advice about things to do in the town.
She added the riders would probably be tired by the time they arrived in Colchester. In addition, she commented, setting up a formal civic reception for the cyclists would stretch the town's resources too far.
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