Liverpool Marathon 2013

AlanRothwell wrote (see)

Thank you all for the comments. as ever, there is an element of truth in all of them. Fact is it is just to difficult to get lengthy road closure along the Strand. The economic benefit of the marathon isn't going to the right places I'm afraid and the major businesses along the waterfront have have complained about loss of trade.

Clearly regular shoppers are more important every day (especially Sunday shoppers) and they take priority over a major event such as ours - only LCC don't see it as a major event and don't belive it will achieve anything beyond what it is now.

An interesting viewpoint that I don't neccessarily agree with. 

Lack of vision maybe? I don't think Brendan Foster would have thought that the GNR would be this big now 30 years ago. I don't know Alan but I do know he has pushed and pushed for many years to put on and establish some great events against a lot of adversity. Fair play to the fella but unfortunately it can't happen without the right people on side.

Just as sanity appeared to have reared it's ugly head the council step in and show what a short sighted gang of half witted numpties they truly are.....The Strand is heaving every Sunday in October as we all know, so who on earth would want thousands of potential customers cluttering up the pavements and staying in the hotels getting the bedrooms all untidy ? Way to go LCC......Yet another own goal.

Sussex Runner (NLR) wrote (see)

Agree with LiverBird. It is really unfair that people think of Liverpudlians as idle, work-shy, untrustworthy layabouts who will steal anything that isn't nailed down. It that kind of commonly held belief by the majority of people who have have ever met a scouser that brings down the reputation of this once great city.

SR I read your comments and I'm disgusted, you forgot to mention their reputations for being claim-happy, which I also think is unfair of you

Alan a serious question, if you held the Marathon last year successfully, obviously the route was a decent one.

What would prevented you using the same route this year, and has the change come about by

1) Have you changed your preferred route

2) Has something happened to prevent you using the 2012 route

There has to be a level of intransigence (possibly on both sides) to have had such a monumental bust up.

I read somewhere that Liverpool has the highest percentage of people in government employment in the country.

Not sure if they were including those on benefits in that survey though.

alan taylor 6 wrote (see)

Its a shame Alan but dont you think the the olimpic legacy was a load of crap once its gone no one in councils wants to do anything sporty because there is no funding for them.

I don't think you can reasonably go looking for funding when it is charged at £49 per head. City Marathons are a gold mine,

What jolly banter....Scouse bashing is however detracting from the real reason for this thread - moaning about the demise of our marathon and Liverpool City Council bashing. 

Alan, thanks for two wonderful marathons.  9/10/11 is probably my favourite race to date.  I wasn't going to do it this year as I'm struggling to find time for marathon training, but am intending to do the Wirral half, and was looking forward to cheering on marathon runners after I'd finished.  It's a tremendous event and I hope it can return.  If not, I'd echo the suggestion of a Wirral marathon in future years.

Nick, I'm guessing you have very little knowledge of the finances involved.  I look forward to you exploiting your own "gold mine" and putting on a similar quality big city event at a lower price.

I don't like the people-bashing - this is the council and I imagine a lot of them are not locals.  I don't know why it's always deemed acceptable to have a go at people from Liverpool - a legacy from the anti-Irish sentiment of a few decades ago perhaps? 

However, you get Nimbys everywhere and maybe the council has just had too many complaints about closed roads?  I think it's pathetic - it's only for a few hours, once a year, but it happened with my local half as well and they had to reroute it away from a housing estate because of nimby locals.  And even on the approved course some old chap decided he absolutely had to drive his car onto it and got in the way when I was running it in 2011!

So shopping is more important.  Doesn't the event bring in loads of business for shops, hotels, cafes etc?  I find it very difficult to believe that there is no economic benefit.

What a shame, totally rubbish decision.  Me and my boyfriend travelled down from Glasgow last year to run the marathon (which was absolutely amazing, as were the people of Liverpool who came out to support us).   We stayed for three nights in a ciy hotel, ate all our meals in city restaurants, and had the obligatory shopping spree as well.  Yet the marathon doesnt benefit the city of Liverpool apparently?  What guff!!!

Id just like to say ONE BIG THANKYOU to Alan.

As only half the Liverpool Marathon is in Liverpool, why is it possible to stage the half marathon in March, but not half of the full marathon in October? Is it just because the road closures don't last as long? Hope the problem is sorted out for 2014, I did the 2012 Liverpool marathon and was planning to do it again this year.

Nick goldmine? Really dont believe it is. road closure where I live is £800 per road per day . St.John/ first aid cover for events of the size 10s of thousands, traffic management for evet of this size is approx £30k tshirt provision £15k and so on

I have dont the maths its frightening