Wtf? well, at least we know what donington are doing about the lack of car parking space!

[en.f1-live.com]

Cars will be banned from the 2010 British Grand Prix at Donington.

The irony of having to leave their own four-wheeled vehicles at home in order to see the famous Formula One single seaters will not be lost on race-goers, who must instead use buses or trains to get to the circuit.

During an open day at Donington, which is yet to receive planning permission for renovations, Chief Executive Simon Gillett said F1 spectators will be able to book their transport with their tickets and accommodation.

"This will be the first public transport Grand Prix.

We are not bringing cars here," he is quoted as saying by the Nottingham Evening Post.
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Surely someone needs to point out to them that donington is in THE MIDDLE OF NO-WHERE! Yes its got the A50 and M1 near by but the nearest decent sized train station must be in Derby! Buses? from where exactly?

i did actually think they may manage to pull the race off, now i'm really not so sure!

I've been to Donnington in past, but only for the music festival (Download). There was around 80,000 there the first year i went and car parking did not seem an issue. Why this has been enforced i am unsure. Could be good, could also be very bad.

Donington has a sunday market every week and has loads of space for car parks away from the actual racing track carparks, cant see why the decision has been made to use public transport.

The surrounding areas are pretty rural, Breedon, Melbourne and of course Donington itself.

None of these as far as i'm aware have a railway station, nearest being where i live, Long Eaton and thats only a tiny station like a bustop.

M1. A50, A42/M42 are all major road networks with no parking facilitys, nearest places are Nottingham,Derby and how are they expected to shuttle tens of thousands of race fans in from there?


To quote Han Solo, " I've got a bad feeling about this!"




LS's Tip of the week
ESSENTIAL OILS aren't essential unless you're an engine, a gearbox or a twat



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/27/2008 01:11PM by LS..

I think this all hinges on the Park and Ride being planned / built at Ratcliffe-on-Soar on the A453. A tram line from the city is going there, there's a railway station being built on the line there. Problem is, I don't think it'll be ready in time. Maybe by 2012, but not 2010.

---

Everyone knows that million-to-one chances happen 9 times out of 10; indeed, it's a common requirement in fairy tales. If the human didn't have to overcome huge odds, what would be the point? Terry Pratchett - The Science Of Discworld

GPGSL S5 Race driver for IED.

Being a resident i know that the A453 is a nightmare, the works are being carried out at the moment.

The problem with that road ( as its been for decades) is its single carriage way and a major road into Nottingham, other one being the A52 up at the next junction of the M1 Northbound.

A453 suffers from the classic bottleneck, motorway traffic peeling straight off the M1 & A50 from Stoke and heading onto a single carriageway.

Having a train station will have no effect on it whatsoever, plans have been spoke about to eleviate this bottle neck and the only way it will happen is to widen the A453 and make it dual carriageway each side, and they've been speaking of doing that since the 1960's




LS's Tip of the week
ESSENTIAL OILS aren't essential unless you're an engine, a gearbox or a twat

I seem to remember one of the surrounding towns having a small rail link from Derby to Castle Donington (would make sense, with a large airport around the corner), with public buses to or near the circuit on race weekends. I'd expect for a GP weekend dedicated buses will be laid on from there.

This could turn out well by showing how Grand Prix could reduce their impact by providing an overall cleaner way for people to attend.

Or it could just be shooting themselves in the foot if a proper system isn't employed..

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A few years ago i went to the Spanish GP at Barcelona and thats out in the sticks away from the main city, and accessable by the train.
Except the train station at Montmelo is totally inadequate to cope with the amount of fans spilling out after the race, there were no extra trains laid on & was generally a nightmare.

This will be Donington, trust me




LS's Tip of the week
ESSENTIAL OILS aren't essential unless you're an engine, a gearbox or a twat

ok, we have already have 'public transport' GP's, Monaco has next to no parking, and Valencia's was sorted out so late that most people decided not to drive in. It worked with valencia, but only because the station was about about 2 miles from the circuit. So you could get straight off the train onto either a shuttle bus or tram and after about 5 minutes you were a short walk from your grandstand.(more importantly, the transport was cheap/free!)

This however, has all the hallmarks of them getting very worried about getting the development plans approved.

If i remember rightly the current development plans did cut into the existing car parks. doing this then enables them to avoid spending money building new ones.

It also removes the need to spend much time upgrading the surrounding road network to cope with 100,000 people in cars.(making it a more likely that planning permission will be granted)

The synical part of me also see this as an opportunity for them to sell the transport rights for the 'offical buses' for a huge sum.(which the bus company will then pass on to the fans)

The problem is how are people going to get there?

ok, you can get one of the buses, but get it from where? if they are going to do a park+ride scheme, fine but thats going to have to be one hell of a car park.

i guess other than Derby, theres Burton-on-trent as the nearest rail stations, but neither of them strike me as being big enough to cope with the number of people who will be turning up.

i guess they're just planning on making the congestion someone elses problem.

LS. Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Being a resident i know that the A453 is a
> nightmare, the works are being carried out at the
> moment.
>
> The problem with that road ( as its been for
> decades) is its single carriage way and a major
> road into Nottingham, other one being the A52 up
> at the next junction of the M1 Northbound.
>
> A453 suffers from the classic bottleneck, motorway
> traffic peeling straight off the M1 & A50 from
> Stoke and heading onto a single carriageway.
>
> Having a train station will have no effect on it
> whatsoever, plans have been spoke about to
> eleviate this bottle neck and the only way it will
> happen is to widen the A453 and make it dual
> carriageway each side, and they've been speaking
> of doing that since the 1960's


Reminds me of the A12 in Suffolk! Single carriageway for most of it, except a couple bypasses at Kessingland and Saxmundham, Snape and then dualled all the way from Woodbridge.

---

Everyone knows that million-to-one chances happen 9 times out of 10; indeed, it's a common requirement in fairy tales. If the human didn't have to overcome huge odds, what would be the point? Terry Pratchett - The Science Of Discworld

GPGSL S5 Race driver for IED.

with rail prices going up, and bus prices beyond a joke with logn distance coaching... this is going to be a disaster!

at least silverstone was more or less in the middle of the uk and accessible in a number of ways.


Jenson drives it like he owns it; Lewis drives it like he stole it

Hmm yeah... this has epic fail stamped all over it.

Just the notion of making this "public transport" only event has already put me off attending.

Can we go back to Silverstone yet please?

Lol How many more times? As long as Bernie is alive F1 will not be going back to Silverstone.

If Donnington fail, and the chances of failure seem to be on the constant up... then there will be no Grand Prix in Britain.

Which is exactly what bernie wants, giving silverstone an ultimatum they cannot achieve in time or budget, giving the place to a rival circuit that also won't be able to achieve the goal in time, meaning they remove the british gp slot from the calendar, ohhh, just in time for the proposed Indian and Russian races.

its been coming all along.

sell up the real fans who pay year after year, sell f1's soul to new fans with little interest than playing with their billions, and then lose interest after the first year or two.

keep the old, keep the people who do turn up year after year without fail, come wind rain or shine.


Jenson drives it like he owns it; Lewis drives it like he stole it

Not a bad idea if they can work it

Using the Australian GP for an example i drive down to Melbourne every year and leave my Car at the Hotel. It's great a Tram takes you right to the Gates of the Track makes coming and going pretty easy.

They will have to make sure that they have a sufficient Volume of Busses, Trains that's the problem with events like this (in my experience anyway) everybody leaves at the same time and there can be problems.

The Thunder from Downunder

If you have to use public transport to arrive, can't you park at the airport, fly to East Midlands airport and then walk into the track?

Have you seen how small the parking is at mids airport? its about the same size as your average supermarket carpark.

They do have long stay car parks for people on holiday scattered around the grounds of the race track in actual fact, but they're always full anyway.

I can see why Donington have opted for the no parking option, its to stop the roads being gridlocked like at the moto gp race there this year, and more importantly it saves spending a sizeable chunk of their redevelopment budget on widening the road to the M1 past the airport.

If i was a betting man i'd say they didnt get planning permission from the farmers in Diseworth to buy the land ( either that or they couldnt agree on price or it was flatly turned down after the greenbelt issue from residents about lengthening the runway at the airport)

And East midlands Airport & DHL certainly werent in a position to sell land as they are right upto the boundry road as it is.




LS's Tip of the week
ESSENTIAL OILS aren't essential unless you're an engine, a gearbox or a twat

danm schreef:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Which is exactly what bernie wants, giving
> silverstone an ultimatum they cannot achieve in
> time or budget, giving the place to a rival
> circuit that also won't be able to achieve the
> goal in time, meaning they remove the british gp
> slot from the calendar, ohhh, just in time for the
> proposed Indian and Russian races.


I'm sorry, but Silverstone has been threatened to be thrown off the calendar for as long as I watch F1, which was ten years ago. They've had ten years to get everything in order, ten years they've been given chances, and they still couldn't do it. They've had their chance and they've blown it by mismanagement. They've rightfully been kicked off.

Went to the Bike show today at the NEC and a mate bought his friend along, he works for the company that resurfaced Donington last time round. We were chatting about the new redevelopment programme, and he told me that Donington havent even tendered out the work to contractors yet!

He also told me he'd seen the plans and said in his opinion they'll never get in it done in the time frame they have left with the sheer amount of work involved.




LS's Tip of the week
ESSENTIAL OILS aren't essential unless you're an engine, a gearbox or a twat



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/29/2008 07:46PM by LS..