There’s just a month to go until The Open at Royal Liverpool Golf Course in Hoylake, so we sat down with Mark Camborne, Wirral Council’s Assistant Director for Neighbourhood Safety and Transport, to find out how preparations are going.
Mark Camborne’s Twitter profile describes him as a golfer, so you might think that being placed in charge of the logistics for ensuring 250,000 visitors get to and from The Open would be something of a busman’s holiday. He laughs at the suggestion, then adds: “In 2014 when I was doing the same role as I am doing now, I could probably count on the fingers of one hand how many times I got on the golf course to watch any golf!
“So yes, it’s absolutely fantastic and I feel very privileged to do it and to be part of the delivery of a truly international sporting event, and those memories that happen. But it is really tiring and is a full on job, and we’re doing it at a time – and I am really conscious of this – that the pressures on local councils is huge. So I haven’t got the benefit of a greater pool of team. I haven’t got the resources that I had last time. I have to quite rightly, and am challenged, quite rightly on the spend of every penny we put into that.”
Mark is a council veteran, having worked on the 2006 and 2014 Opens in Hoylake, and wants to make sure local people, particularly those who are new to the area since the last championship, are prepared for the disruption it will cause.
He said: “There’s a couple of key priorities for us. The first one and the most important one is ensuring we have an effective traffic plan. This is 16,000 vehicles coming into the borough. We’ve got to make sure that people can go about their everyday lives, those that aren’t interested in the golf. But we have a finite road network so we need to continue to review that and finesse it, building on previous great opens that we’ve had. The last two it’s worked really well. But there’s always improvements to be made.
“And then there’s the whole making sure the community’s on board with us. I think we have a really important role to be that interface between the event organisers, who basically want to run an international sporting event which is huge in its own right, and we need to be that interface, that balance between the residents and businesses who need to go about their everyday life, not be affected negatively by it, and obviously making opportunities for people who can make positive outcomes from The Open coming.”
Information sessions for local people began last autumn and were, he says, well attended: “We set up four events pre-Christmas which might have been a bit early, but actually they were really well turned out. I was keen to make sure we included West Kirby in that, so we had a couple on the Hoylake side and ran one up at Westbourne Hall. It was well attended with really good questions and positive feedback really, [with people saying] thanks for coming and telling us, [and] lots of people starting to think about it.
“We’ve done another four this side of Christmas leading up to it, and we’ve done a couple specific for business in addition to that, and I’ve made the offer to do as many talks to groups. I did the University of the Third Age at the Hope Church and there were over 150 people there that came to that and it was really well received.”
Letters have already been distributed to residents affected by road changes, and the council has set up a dedicated newsletter for people to sign up to for information, as well as creating dedicated pages on its website.
In terms of the disruption for locals, Mark is upfront: “It will have an impact – I can’t make the road network any bigger. We have got a whole host of additional resources out there, manning signals, accredited officers paid for by the R&A as part of the delivery of the event. And we run it on a tried and trusted method that the majority of them will go the park and ride sites, Pump Lane and Heron Road, but I can’t say that Market Street in Hoylake and going up Meols Drive is not going to be busy – it is going to be busy and people need to plan accordingly for that.
“They’ll see changes to waiting zones, parking bays where there’ll be no waiting restrictions. We need to keep those primary road networks clear, not just for spectators coming in – it’s actually for emergency vehicles. We need to make sure we can get those around with the least effort, so there’ll be lots and lots of yellow cones around, and that’s just the way of an Open championship.
In relation to the termination of the train service to and from Liverpool at Hoylake from mid-July, he said: “That’s a real issue for some people. There will be rail replacement bus services to pick that up, but I know people in West Kirby value the train terminating at that end, but we can’t run the Open championship if we don’t close that line, as that is just the way the land is on the Wirral side. For that period of time, I hope that little bit of disruption, people will understand why.”
He said work is now getting under way on making sure the area looks its best: “You’ll start to see more regular clean ups, you’ll see people cleaning the weeds and doing the verges and a bit more road lining to present the borough in the best way.
“We’ve been quite clever with our resources, we haven’t got any extra money for this so it’s about re-prioritising work programmes where things may have taken place in a year’s time, we’ve brought them forward and swapped them with other areas so people get the best benefit coming in.
“And then it’s the practical things around bins. We will make sure bin emptying still carries on in the week for the residents who live around here, but may change the day slightly. We’ll communicate that very clearly and upfront with them about what day it is. We’ll ask them to be supportive of us in terms of making sure the bins are taken back in quickly after it’s been emptied just to try and keep the pavements and the road network clear.”
He says he hopes local people just enjoy the buzz of the event: “If you haven’t been and experienced it before, the vibe of the week of an Open championship on your doorstep if you live around here, yes it’s going to be a little bit noisier, yes it’s going to be a little bit more busy – but actually there will be people coming from all over the globe. Let’s welcome them and show them what Wirral has got to offer. The people who are staying in and around and eating in the restaurants, and the bars it will be such a great occasion.”
- The latest information from Wirral Council relating to The Open can be found at https://www.wirral.gov.uk/open-2023-wirral
- A drop-in information office has been set up at the office at the Municipal golf course on Carr Lane in Hoylake. It is open Monday to Friday, 9am – 12 midday and 1pm – 4:30pm throughout June and July.
- Read our guide to changes to services for the The Open at https://westkirby.todaynews.co.uk/2023/05/01/news/all-you-need-to-know-about-the-open/
NEXT WEEK: In the second part of our interview, Mark Camborne talks about the work to support local businesses so they benefit from The Open.