‘Social benefits’ of Tour de Yorkshire

DONCASTER: The Tour de Yorkshire is building momentum for lasting social and health benefits that must now be harnessed in parts of the region, researchers have said, as the findings of a groundbreaking new study commissioned by Doncaster Council, examining the impact and legacy of the cycling race were revealed.

THE TOUR de Yorkshire is building momentum for lasting social and health benefits that must now be harnessed in parts of the region, researchers have said, as the findings of a groundbreaking new study examining the impact of the legacy cycling race were revealed.

Commissioned by Doncaster Council, as part of the Get Doncaster Moving health drive, the research by Leeds Beckett University outlines how the town could tap into the popularity of the major sporting event in the future, just months before it returns.

Doncaster first hosted the Tour de Yorkshire in 2016, when more than 50,000 people watched the action, and the town was chosen as the first stage of the men’s and women’s races for May 3 earlier this year.

Now, as it prepares to host the start of the first stage of the 2019 race on May 2, council bosses and academics are highlighting how the town must reap the benefits of the legacy event. Doncaster Council also revealed that the authority has already created a fulltime “major events team” in response to the findings.

Lucy McCombes, a senior lecturer at Leeds Beckett University who led the study, said: “The Tour de Yorkshire is building an incredible positive momentum for creating local social, health and economic benefits for Doncaster that needs to be harnessed.

“This research supports the Tour de Yorkshire delivery team to reflect on how best to work with local people to ‘oil the wheels’ of this major sporting event to maximise its local benefit.”

The study, funded by Sport England, has seen research teams work with six communities based along the race route in Doncaster when the race rattled through the region earlier this year, to collect data and access the social impacts of the race.

They were looking at issues ranging from community wellbeing, sense of “civic pride”, community spirit and physical activity levels in light of the race passing through the town.

In one survey which examined how communities engaged with the major sporting event, more than 93 per cent of those who responded stated that their experience of the Tour de Yorkshire had either been “positive” or “very positive”.

Andy Maddox, a strategic development officer at Doncaster Council, who commissioned the research, said: “The aim of the project was to use an evidenceled approach to understand the social impacts of large-scale sports events on local communities and levels of resident physical activity.”

He added: “The 2018 Tour de Yorkshire provided an opportunity to pilot a new approach to assessing and monitoring the social outcomes of current and future major sporting events in Doncaster”.

The Tour de Yorkshire is building an incredible positive momentum... Lucy McCombes, senior lecturer at Leeds Beckett University.