Excellent article re the Croft saga published on BikeSport News website:
http://bikesportnews...html?id=2&col=1 "CROFT - THE THIN END OF THE WEDGE
The rejection of the Croft Circuit appeal looks surprising and frightening in equal measure to most people within the industry. However, it is not the first circuit to be subjected to such Draconian restrictions.
Lydden Hill in Kent suffered a similar ruling back in the late 1980s, with Dover District Council siding with just three residents and imposing strict conditions for the operation of the venue which limited the circuit to just 52 days of activity in any calendar year. The venue has survived until the present day, but you only have to look at how far its development has fallen behind the other permanent circuits in the intervening years to see the drastic effect this has on investment and facilities.
If anything, the Croft situation is even more serious as BARC have invested heavily in the venue expecting to be able to reap the rewards of that financial outlay over a period of many years. The simple arithmetic says that in order to maintain the venue in its current state, an average days circuit hire would need to go from approximately £17,000 per day (based on 144 days useage) to a new level of £61,200 per day (based on the new restriction of just 40 days). Clearly that is an untenable situation and savings would have to made elsewhere, but to attempt to make savings of £1,768,000 each year is probably beyond even the considerable business skills of the BARC.
The scary thing about this case, is how the claimants by-passed the Section 106 Planning Permissions that the circuit owners had operated within since 1998. Most circuit operators are extremely careful to stay well within the planning permission for their particular venue, thus giving their neighbours no reasonable excuse to challenge their right to operate the business within those restrictions.
The key difference here is that this challenge is somewhat of an “inside job” given that one of the principals was formerly married to the circuit manager when they bought the property and the incisive point is that she was fully aware of the operations that took place before the 1998 planning permission was finalised.
The vital period from the claimants point of view was 1994 to 1998 and this is how they diverted the accusation that they had “Come to Nuisance” which is the sane mans way of saying “If you move in next to a motor racing circuit, what do you expect?”
Quoting from the ruling:
The use of the circuit since 1949 falls into five distinct periods:
(1) 1949 to 1962 intermittent use for car racing;
(2) 1963 to 1979 car racing on not more than 20 days a year together with
additional associated practice days;
(3) 1980 to 1994 10 days a year rallycross;
(4) 1995 to 1997 sporadic race meetings interspersed with track alteration and
improvements;
(5) 1998 to 2006 between 98 and 147 N1 to N4 days a year, as defined in the
s.106 Agreement.
During the period they refer to(1994 – 1998), the venue was still ostensibly operating on the 1963 permission, which is all well and good, except for the fact that in 1981 the then owner had applied for (and had been granted) permission to return the land to agricultural use. This is the spurious basis for the claim that the area was predominantly rural in nature, despite the fact that it had a former airfield and a motor racing circuit at its heart.
Common sense says that the full Public Enquiry in 1998 that heard all of the arguments from both sides and established the Section 106 permission, should have been the definitive end to the argument. It was on the basis of this that major investment was made for the benefit of motorsport, but also importantly for the benefit of the local community.
It now seems that a succession of four judges have all come to the conclusion that they can assess the merits of the case from the confines of their courtrooms in a total of just five days, better than a full public enquiry that took over eight months to complete in 1998. In addition to this, the Court of Appeal has actually strengthened the ruling by adding an injunction to the original ruling.
It has been stated right from the start that there was no intention by the claimants to interfere with the circuits “Core Activities”. However, it would appear that there is a complete lack of understanding over exactly what every motor racing circuits “Core Activities” consist of in the modern world.
Most circuits make as much, if not more, money from track days, experience days and corporate days than they do from actual racing activities. Therefore their “Core Activities” should actually be described as Motor Vehicle Speed events rather than Motor Sport events.
Sadly, we are being ruled by a judiciary that have little or no understanding of the real world and we are considered to be a nuisance, right up until the moment that these very same people want to sup Champagne in the comfort of the HSBC lounge at the British F1 Grand Prix. I am left looking forward to the first case brought by the neighbours of Cheltenham Race Course or Epsom Downs using this ridiculous precedent! We’ll see how they react to that little “side-effect” of this stupid ruling!
The circuit owners are doubtless now meeting to form a united strategy to confront this most serious threat to the Motor Sport industry, something that generates over £5 billion for the British economy and empoys thousands of people.
If the government is even considering letting Britain become Switzerland MkII (motorsport-free) it might be a good idea to look at the rest of the economy first;- Switzerland relies entirely on its banking sector. Looking at the complete corrupt and unscrupulous mess that is the British banking industry, do the law-makers really want to model private industry on that most dubious sector?
A challenge to this must come. Not just for the sake of Croft or the BARC, but for everyone that has ever been involved in the sport. Doing nothing is tantamount to collaborating with these modern-day pirates and is simply not an option.
“A collaborator is someone who feeds the crocodile hoping to be eaten last” – Winston Churchill 1939
The circuits, RAC-MSA, ACU, MCRCB, MRPC and MCI will need to come up with a plan of action fairly soon and when they do, it will be our responsibility to support them to the hilt."
Written by Thundersport promoter Dave Stewart.
;) 
