… when the roads are gridlocked, the pubs and restaurants are full to over flowing and you can’t actually enjoy living in town.
Yes that’s right – its The Cheltenham Festival. When the world and his dog descends on the town, drinks too much Guinness and then throws up or pisses in the street.
So just what is the impact of the festival on town? Well it took 90m minutes for me to do a round trip to Gloucester today (about 30 minutes longer than normal) and the roads are a complete mess. Its not worth going out for a drink because everywhere is full of drunks from the racecourse. And of course THEY are more important than the locals because they are so pissed and flash with the cash that they don’t notice if they are over charged, and don’t even think about trying to go and eat somewhere.
I don’t want to even think about the carbon foot print of the festival. 4 days, approx 60,000 people per day. Thats a lot of cars/buses/coaches. Then there’s the shipping (and storage and preparation) of all the beer and food they consume over the four days and nights at the racecourse and down in town, and the placing of over 3 miles of “no parking” cones because these people will park ANYWHERE – they don’t give a toss about anyone else, and the shipping in of all the horses, the jockeys and the racing teams.
Then what about the litter, the mess that the council have to clear up (and I wonder who picks up the bill for that), and the policing? Tons of drunk drivers around and tons of people drunk and disorderly but no-one seems to get stopped/charged/fined.
But its “good for the town” apparently… not sure how