Black Country cycle-race road closures force couple to stay in hotel
A Black Country couple have been forced to hire an hotel room so they can attend a family wedding on the day of a cycling event for the Commonwealth Games.
Keith and Anita Markham, of Sedgley, are among the thousands of families in Dudley, Wolverhampton and surrounding areas who will be unable to use roads around their home during the cycling time trials on Thursday.
Mr Markham, 80, and his his wife, who is 78, are due to attend the wedding of their godson James Bakewell and his fiancee Elizabeth at The Hundred House Hotel in Norton, near Shifnal, the same day as the race.
But road closures for the games mean the only way they can attend will be to stay in an hotel the night before.
The race runs straight past their home in Penn Road, Gospel End, which will be closed to all traffic from 5am to 6pm on the day.
The road closures mean there will be no access to the main road network for people living in the Gospel End, Cotwall End, Northway or Brownswall areas of Sedgley for the day of the race, along with the Goldthorn Park area of Wolverhampton and areas of Woodsetton and Upper Gornal.
The couple said they had to pay £120 to stay at the Premier Inn in Telford. They accused organisers of showing a lack of flexibility.
Mr Markham said: "I went to a meeting at Wombourne Community Centre, and was told there would be 'no concessions', and that we should try to 'make alternative arrangements'.
"How can we do that? Are they asking us to postpone the wedding?"
Mr Markham said he was a close friend of the groom's father, who had died recently.
Mrs Markham added: "I think it's ever so unfair, a lot of elderly people live in this area.
"How are they going to get to medical appointments, and how are their carers going to get to them?
"There should have been more consideration for this. Not everyone is mad on sport."
Mr Markham added that there would also be no access for The Firs care home in nearby Gospel End Road.
