CLOSEDROADRALLY IN ESSEX

Firsteventtotakeadvantageof new Uklegislation isplanned

The first event to take advantage of the UK’S new closed-roads legislation will be a 45-mile rally in south east England, run by the Chelmsford Motor Club.

A change in the Road Traffic Act back in April means that events no longer need to go through expensive and timeconsuming legislation to obtain a closed-road stage permit. The right to hand out closed-road stage permits now lies with the Motor Sports Association – the body responsible for governing motorsport in the UK. The relevant local highways authority then has to issue a ‘Motor Race Order’, which has also been applied for.

The CMC event – which is yet to be named – will be based in Clacton-onSea, near Colchester, and will run stages in the Tendring Peninsula on April 22.

“It’s roughly 45 stage miles, three loops of five stages, 15 stages in all,” said event director Tony Clements. “For the first running we’ve not gone for as many miles as we may have wanted to, we didn’t want to be over ambitious. We would like to get the event established in the area with a view to developing it further in the future.”

Clements confirmed that the rally wouldn’t be a round of any championship while the club looks to establish the new event.

The club already runs two rallies, the Brands Hatch Winter Stages in January and the Wethersfield Stages at a Wethersfield Ministry of Defence facility in August.

It has worked closely with the MSA and made changes to the route on its recommendations. The latter has surveyed the route of the rally and assigned an MSA Safety Delegate, of which one is required for all stage rallies in the UK.