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No.You brought it up moaning how a sporting event had negative effects on business etc, but can’t see how others might see our sport in a negative light or even football. Trouble is when you start moaning about how one thing negatively effects you then it is hard to stop. That is the world we live in

Edited by iris123

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13 hours ago, RobMcCaffery said:

It's the age-old argument that's based on the false assumption that we use petrol. So it's vital to get the methanol response ready. In reality though, it's a case of people clutching at any straw to save their property's value. 

Same as when Long Eaton were fighting to survive, and one of the major issues was that residents didn't want speedway as it attracted the "wrong sort of people" (bikers). Really?

If people have a legitimate concern, I have no problem with that, but when they simply manufacture these concerns thanks to ignorance and prejudice (or simply resort to downright lies), then yes, I do...

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1 minute ago, iris123 said:

No.You brought it up moaning how a sporting event had negative effects on business etc, but can’t see how others might see our sport in a negative light or even football. Trouble is when you start moaning about how one thing negatively effects you then it is hard to stop. That is the world we live in

Been discussed and debated elsewhere.

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3 minutes ago, iris123 said:

No.You brought it up moaning how a sporting event had negative effects on business etc, but can’t see how others might see our sport in a negative light or even football. Trouble is when you start moaning about how one thing negatively effects you then it is hard to stop. That is the world we live in

Some people are just going to moan whatever - and we have several really good examples here on the BSF...

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I recall another case (can't remember the track, though), when residents complained about the year-round noise of speedway bikes all hours of the day and night, most days of the week.

And we let them get away with lies like that...

Still, we have seen how fact and truth mean nothing when people have opinions.

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58 minutes ago, chunky said:

Some people are just going to moan whatever - and we have several really good examples here on the BSF...

Just came as bit of a surprise that on a sports forum, someone was complaining about a sporting event taking place near by !!!

Nowt so queer as folk , as they might say in Yorkshire

Edited by iris123

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3 minutes ago, iris123 said:

Just came as bit of a surprise that on a sports forum, someone was complaining about a sporting event taking place near by !!!

Nowt so queer as folk , as they might say in Yorkshire

Nothing on the BSF should surprise you....:rolleyes:

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When it is a new venue or the re-opening of a previous venue, it's understandable to a degree, that people living locally will have concerns. The majority of the concerns will be honestly made but there will always be the few "professional" moaners who will do everything they can to influence that majority by the spreading of some quite ridiculous tales. At Birmingham, we convinced the City Council to give us a temporary planning consent for a trial period of three years. When the trial period was up, we had to re-apply and inevitably there was a hard core who became more and more desperate in their attempts to block it. Four residents wrote to the Council to say that they could put up with the noise, (they had little choice because the Council's own noise tests showed that the sound of the bikes was inaudible from their houses), but said that the "evil smell of the petrol was making them ill!" We even had people claim that people living several miles away from the stadium were subject to louder noise "because they didn't have the sound of the heavy traffic to drown it" - seriously trying to imply that whilst the noise from a very busy road decreased with distance, the noise from the speedway didn't!

Over the last six years, Birmingham Speedway has received just one complaint - and that was about noise from the tannoy not the bikes.

Although we can never completely eliminate the attentions of the nimbys, I always found that whenever we could have a face to face meeting with local residents, they were invariably reasonable and willing to listen to our point of view - and the biggest mistake that we can make is to try and ridicule what are people's genuine concerns.

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Among the prejudices we face is the mistaken idea that we were American-style car racing with the track used daily for hours on end with cars belching out petrol fumes is a major problem. As Brian Buck points out, only face to face education can solve this. People get scared and then start believing more and more rubbish that reinforces that.

 

Many years ago attempts were made to introduce speedway to Southend Stadium (ironically designed as a speedway track) met with two objections apart from noise. 

"We don't want those hyell's angels here"

"We don't want all those programmes thrown into our gardens"

 

Ignorance supported by fear is a heck of an opponent.

 

Edited by RobMcCaffery

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1 hour ago, brianbuck said:

When it is a new venue or the re-opening of a previous venue, it's understandable to a degree, that people living locally will have concerns. The majority of the concerns will be honestly made but there will always be the few "professional" moaners who will do everything they can to influence that majority by the spreading of some quite ridiculous tales. At Birmingham, we convinced the City Council to give us a temporary planning consent for a trial period of three years. When the trial period was up, we had to re-apply and inevitably there was a hard core who became more and more desperate in their attempts to block it. Four residents wrote to the Council to say that they could put up with the noise, (they had little choice because the Council's own noise tests showed that the sound of the bikes was inaudible from their houses), but said that the "evil smell of the petrol was making them ill!" We even had people claim that people living several miles away from the stadium were subject to louder noise "because they didn't have the sound of the heavy traffic to drown it" - seriously trying to imply that whilst the noise from a very busy road decreased with distance, the noise from the speedway didn't!

Over the last six years, Birmingham Speedway has received just one complaint - and that was about noise from the tannoy not the bikes.

Although we can never completely eliminate the attentions of the nimbys, I always found that whenever we could have a face to face meeting with local residents, they were invariably reasonable and willing to listen to our point of view - and the biggest mistake that we can make is to try and ridicule what are people's genuine concerns.

If truth were told, the more ridiculous complaints are made the better because it destroys the case against speedway.

Best one I ever heard was about Kent, with someone saying they couldn't sleep for the noise on a particular night.

Unfortunately for them, there was no meeting that night. 

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That's a very similar story to the early days at Birmingham when a lady living locally read in the Birmingham Mail that we had raced against Rye House one Saturday night so she wrote to the Council to complain about the noise plus the fact that we were in breach of the planning conditions by running on a Saturday night. What she didn't realise, was that we were away at Rye House that particular Saturday night. Naturally, the Council took here complaint as gospel and forwarded her letter to us for our comments. I wrote the lady a polite letter explaining the facts,and pointing out that greyhound racing took place at the stadium every Saturday night,  but she still insisted that she heard the noise - and that it wasn't traffic noise!

It was clear that no matter what anyone tried to tell this lady, she was going to stick it out that we had raced at Perry Barr on that Saturday night, but fortunately for us, her neighbours wouldn't back her up and in time, the Perry Barr locals (apart from the inevitable odd nimby)  became much more reasonable and we now have a good relationship with them.

Edited by brianbuck
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46 minutes ago, brianbuck said:

It was clear that no matter what anyone tried to tell this lady, she was going to stick it out that we had raced at Perry Barr on that Saturday night, but fortunately for us, her neighbours wouldn't back her up and in time, the Perry Barr locals (apart from the inevitable odd nimby)  became much more reasonable and we now have a good relationship with them.

There was a big problem with Mansell's race track down in Devon where some nimby locals were filing multiple fake noise grievances (ironically despite the raceway being located right next to an active airfield). Fortunately, Mansell had deep enough pockets to go all the way to the High Court where the case ended-up being quashed, but it seems the local council never checked the veracity of the claims before issuing the noise abatement orders and it cost a fortune to defend. 

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32 minutes ago, Humphrey Appleby said:

There was a big problem with Mansell's race track down in Devon where some nimby locals were filing multiple fake noise grievances (ironically despite the raceway being located right next to an active airfield). Fortunately, Mansell had deep enough pockets to go all the way to the High Court where the case ended-up being quashed, but it seems the local council never checked the veracity of the claims before issuing the noise abatement orders and it cost a fortune to defend. 

Which would come out of the council tax paid by residents

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I believe Ipswich speedway had a similar case a few years ago where a women complained about the speedway on a specific night when there wasn't any speedway that night!

 

It beggars belief how pig ignorant some people are.

 

I still remember the hugely successful Romford Bombers speedway (averaging 5000 crowds) shutting down in 1971 after losing a High court case brought against them by ONE guy who lived live by. Ironically this dreadful person moved soon after winning this case and cut of an avenue of pleasure for his son who was a Regular at Brooklands! Crazy!

 

Think of the income 5000 average crowds was bringing to the area in terms of money spent in nearby outlets and jobs created on racenights.

 

I'm still convinced that had Romford been allowed to continue, they'd of had a similar successful history to that of fellow early 70's Division 2 boom track Ipswich and would be a well established top flight track even now?

 

Did Oxford ever have problems with NIMBY's? - If so it could be a problem if the speedways ever reinstated at the stadium?

Edited by 25yearfan

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21 hours ago, 25yearfan said:

Did Oxford ever have problems with NIMBY's? - If so it could be a problem if the speedways ever reinstated at the stadium?

Yes - all the time - but the stadium was there long before the housing and the City Council was generally supportive of the speedway. 

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