In February this year, a proposal was made by Ely Churches Together to arrange a Palm Sunday afternoon Walk of Witness with an open air service in the City Centre. Other Cardiff ecumenical groups were invited to take part.The organiser approached the Police, and an (un-named) senior officer happily granted permission for this to take place. The organiser was advised to check if the City Centre Management team had been informed by the Police that the march was taking place, since the day-to-day organisation and safe running of every kind of activity in the pedestrian area is their concern. The team takes pride in being a 'can-do' organisation. As it turned out, they had not been informed of this decision by the police. As it also turned out, the Walk organisers had also not been informed by the Police that there was a major sporting event on in the Millennium Stadium, involving some road closures and inevitably high demand on parking space within a couple of miles of the centre.
The City Centre Management team considered that despite the crowds expected for the match, there was no reason why the Walk, and open air service should not be able to take place, since a large proportion of the crowd would be in the stadium at the proposed time, and there would probably be fewer shoppers than a normal Sunday afternoon. While big sporting events attract accompanying spouses to go shopping during the match (if they are not otherwise attending it), many more people in South Wales are deterred from Sunday shopping on match days, on account of the noise, mess and crowds and inaccessibility before and after the match, so retailers (apart from fast food and souvenir merchants, also hoteliers) don't generally benefit from Big Match days. City Centre management knows its constituency!
In the event, the Walk organisers, although they had gone to the trouble of publicising it, felt obliged to cancel in the week before, aware that many older people, or parents with young children, who may want to take part, would equally be deterred by the thought of it being a Match Day, and the possibility of having to walk a long way from their parked cars. Public transport is not great on Sundays at the best of times, and gets disrupted by Stadium events. The majority of participants, living 3-4 miles out, would need transport to get within range of the city centre, or else would not have been able to manage to arrive at the rendezvous point for the Walk in good time.
Sunday sporting and leisure activities involving either the demands of large crowds or road closures in the city centre, disrupt 15-20% of regular Sunday commercial and religious activity in the heart of the city each year. There is no shortage of good-will on the ground to allow all activities to co-exist. Any and every major event involves collaboration by a wide range of organisations to ensure smooth running. However, the fact that both commerce and religion both suffer from the disruption, despite representations and protests about not being taken into consideration, suggests that consultation and 'partnership working' in the city is not as effective as it should be.
The City Centre Management team considered that despite the crowds expected for the match, there was no reason why the Walk, and open air service should not be able to take place, since a large proportion of the crowd would be in the stadium at the proposed time, and there would probably be fewer shoppers than a normal Sunday afternoon. While big sporting events attract accompanying spouses to go shopping during the match (if they are not otherwise attending it), many more people in South Wales are deterred from Sunday shopping on match days, on account of the noise, mess and crowds and inaccessibility before and after the match, so retailers (apart from fast food and souvenir merchants, also hoteliers) don't generally benefit from Big Match days. City Centre management knows its constituency!
In the event, the Walk organisers, although they had gone to the trouble of publicising it, felt obliged to cancel in the week before, aware that many older people, or parents with young children, who may want to take part, would equally be deterred by the thought of it being a Match Day, and the possibility of having to walk a long way from their parked cars. Public transport is not great on Sundays at the best of times, and gets disrupted by Stadium events. The majority of participants, living 3-4 miles out, would need transport to get within range of the city centre, or else would not have been able to manage to arrive at the rendezvous point for the Walk in good time.
Sunday sporting and leisure activities involving either the demands of large crowds or road closures in the city centre, disrupt 15-20% of regular Sunday commercial and religious activity in the heart of the city each year. There is no shortage of good-will on the ground to allow all activities to co-exist. Any and every major event involves collaboration by a wide range of organisations to ensure smooth running. However, the fact that both commerce and religion both suffer from the disruption, despite representations and protests about not being taken into consideration, suggests that consultation and 'partnership working' in the city is not as effective as it should be.
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