Residents living in the vicinity of the Hazelwood Training Centre will have noticed the thoughtless and inconsiderate parking by many of the visitors to the London Irish annual Mini Festival on 26th April. After receiving a number of complaints the Association raised the matter at a meeting with the Chairman of the Organising Committee.
Before discussing steps to be taken to minimise disruption next year, the Chairman was anxious to point out the measures they had taken to prevent parking congestion before this year's event and it is only fair to point these out:
- informaton pack sent out to attendees 3 & 1 weeks before the event;
- made clear that no parking was available at Hazelwood;
- made clear that consideration for the club's neighbours is needed;
- all visitors guided to use coaches where possible, or public transport;
- all car users guided to use Kempton Park Race Course and shuttle bus service.
The L. Irish Amateur RFC investigated multiple options for car parking and rented 2 separate locations together with a shuttle bus transfer service at a combined cost of £1,800:
- Kempton Park - approx 650 cars parked, 5 double-decker buses used for transfer;
- St. Paul's School - approx 200 cars and 11 x 50 seat coaches parked;
- 52 car park marshals volunteered for the day's event;
- marshals used in shifts, primarily in the early morning peak period before the 10am start to the Festival and situated at 7 locations between Kempton and Croysdale Avenue;
- marshals, despite not being legally empowered to prevent visitors from parking, appealed to the goodwill of visitors not to park in the local area but to go to Kempton and use Park and Ride service;
- local police had been informed of the event in advance in order that dangerously parked or obstructing vehicles could be ticketed.
Despite these measures, 'residents parking only' signs at the top of roads parallel to Croysdale were destroyed beyond repair by vandals in the days before the Festival; some visitors chose to ignore pre-festival communications or ignored car parking marshals "as they are entitled to park as they pay road tax like anyone else".
It should be stressed that this is the first year that Hazelwood has hosted the Mini Festival and it's not surprising that there are lessons to be learnt for future years. One identified weakness is that visiting clubs did not adequately communicate to their members the information packs issued by London Irish. The Chairman has undertaken to be much more forceful in his communications to visiting clubs next year whilst accepting that this is unlikely to deter the awkward minority who have no regard for the inconvenience caused to local residents.
Next year's event is scheduled to take place on 24th April and the Chairman has agreed to communicate with LOSRA beforehand in order to alert residents through this website.
