'Health and safety killjoys' kill cheese-rolling race

A local writes...

The problem is the audience, not the participants. It's just a large local hill, there is no car park, there is no significant access for anything. It's densely wooded, other than the bit that people throw themselves down. The bits that aren't covered in trees are covered in mud. They put up a rope bannister along the side of the hill, and you haul yourself up the rope to watch assorted rugby-club veterans and peer-pressured teens injure themselves.

There is simply no infrastructure to cope with the increased audience. There's nowhere for them to leave their cars. There's nowhere for coaches to pick up / drop off people.

It worked fine as a local event for local people. But there is simply no way for this to work as a national or international spectacle.

Long/lat 51.831,-2.158 if you're interested.

And in breaking news ...

... a government spokestwerp announced today that getting out of bed can seriously damage your health!

Paris, cos she knows how important it is to stay in bed!

Radio 4

The organiser of the event was interviewed on Radio 4 this morning.

Yes, the problem is with the number of people who turned up to watch creating a concern for public order and health and safety. Even that wasn't the reason to cancel this year's event.

The proposal is to make it a ticket-only event (like many other gatherings). To control the numbers of people attending the organisers need to close off the land and control access. Unfortunately, Coopers Hill is common land with public footpaths. These can't be closed (even for one day) without the necessary permissions. Closing the common land and footpaths requires permission from councils. There isn't time to get the paperwork sorted for this year's event. So, ultimately the problem is bureaucracy.

As the organiser admitted: a victim of its own success.

the dangers of cheese

the one time i did it (back in the day) there was nowhere near even 5k people there, even so they were very densely packed to either side of the descent.

agreed that 45 degrees is not vertical, however it looks pretty close to it when you are at the top looking down, and it is certainly steep enough to get a fair old pace on the relatively large cheese as it rolls & bounces down the uneven slope.

shortly after my one and only descent, both of these factors combined to send the cheese careening off at a wild angle, about 3 quarters of the way down the slope, straight into the crowd & injuring some poor member of the public to the extent they also got carted off in an ambulance, along with a few contestants of course.

great day out that was.

Council idiots

Our local council is stuffed to the gills with retards (as is the case for local councils throughout the country). They are typical jobsworths in all areas, but particularly when it comes to health and safety.

However, this doesn't stop them from making money every year by putting on an Airshow that allows a constant series of fighter jets to fly mere metres above the rooftops of houses in a densely populated area. Safety doesn't seem to be a consideration under those circumstances.

Cheese rolling pales in comparison.

My first claim to fame..

Was in the sizeable crowd way back when the BBC filmed 'In at the deep end' with a young Christopher Searle and appeared in the TV footage along with a gang of mates circa late 80's.

Been down several times since, once even sober.

The IT angle - you think they would have a better web site.

voluntary attempts at suicide

With incidental entertainment for the masses should be encouraged not outlawed! How else would we have the skeleton, or motorcycle sidecar racing?

CKompromize?

Maybe, like the hunt lobby, rather than a cheesy chase they can do a cheesy walk?

A tethered cheese taken for a cheesy walk with the winner satisfying some criteria?

Maybe:

best walk

most elegant walk

trendiest cheese with dullest walker

trendiest cheese with trendiest walker

.

.

.

and so on and so forth.

You know what the killer is?

UK local authorities have to uphold the Sustainable Communities Act.

Sooooo ... any one local to the area might badger/complain/otherwise motivate said local authority under said Act.

If transport is a region why the local authority might suggest spreading the venue over several fields , several villages and might even provide free transport between them.

BTW: UK local authorities tend to be very well populated with numptiz at employee and elected member levels.

Only a dullwit could have a suitable lack of nounce to end or breech a tradition such as that and the same dullwit will probably have the event in CV along with newspaper cuttings on the wall.

There are alternatives, shame the motivators for ending are not equally motivated to make it happen (complain under Sustainable Communities Act dudes!)

ps: might it not occur that effect of recession urm, ... cash crisis, ... urm ... financial sector putting the boot in , ... urm .. well, you know... might not downwardly influence numbers of people expected to visit?

For the poorly informed

A quote from summary of Sustainable Communities Act:

Purpose

The aim of this section is to support local authorities, their partners and local people in their work to promote local sustainability. This provision will inform local authorities’ consultations with local people, strengthen local democracy and enhance the operation of the new Local Area Agreements by ensuring that there is greater accountability and transparency. We intend to ensure that local spending reports are closely linked with the regular and accessible information on local services that we have committed to provide for local communities.

Local spending reports will enable local authorities, their partners and communities to take better informed decisions about the priorities they choose to pursue to promote the sustainability of their local community. They will also enable local people and local authorities to identify which functions (and funding) they might propose should be transferred from one body to another.

Can't be bothered mentioning the source - it seems far too dull for sure babe.

Freed Cheese

This heralds a great day for cheese freedom, and end to 200 hundred years of abuse at the hands and mouths of the cheese eating surrender munchies and their unfeasibly fiendish cracker biscuits.

Big smiley cheese icon.

Thanks for the long/lat dude

51.831, -2.158

It still begs the question about what local authority is doing to meet local initiatives in an accountable and sustainable manner.

It looks as if the answer is: .... ?

Does anyone have a link to the local council's accountability page that meets Sustainable Communities Act 2007?

ps: thought not (pre-emptive but true?)

booo

boooo

I'm sick to death of these f**ktards. this country is no longer the great country it used to be.

Where is the IT angle in this...

... unless it is the barcode on the cheese?

@ David 12:15 GMT

Posted in bootnotes dude.

I think it is the anything goes here for sorta interesting stuff.

You can tell it is posted in Bootnotes because just under the authors name there is a link on the word Bootnotes that, unsuprisingly, takes the clicker to Bootnotes sections.

And lo! it is full of stuff