by Councillor Chris Cunningham

Glasgow is looking forward to the European Championships in August.

It’s going to be a great celebration of sport and it will hopefully show off the city at its best.

In the west of the city, we will see the BMX events in the new purpose built circuit in Knightswood. The track is now ready and the local community saw its first proper event last month. We have to hope that the real thing will go better.

It was a big meeting, with riders from all over the UK and it went on for the whole day, with lots of noise and a great many competitors. It’s fair to say that the crowds, the traffic and the numbers appear to have come as a bit of a surprise to the organisers.

It was certainly a surprise to the local residents, who felt overwhelmed and intimidated by the scale and noise of the whole thing.

Cars were parked everywhere, including on pavements and in front of driveways. The noise went on for the whole day and could be heard clearly as far away as the Lincoln Inn. Riders were reduced to changing in the street. The litter wasn’t picked up afterwards and as a consequence, the seagulls had a feast.

Glasgow Life attended a community council meeting on Wednesday, June 20. Local residents did not hold back and given that the European event is only weeks away there’s clearly a bit of work to be done.

To be fair, the European event will be smaller in scale and shorter in duration but if last weekend serves any purpose it will be that of a wake-up call.

New venues are, by definition, untested. They need to be bedded in and the organisers need to understand the concerns that locals have.

They need to understand the area, the streets and the traffic. All of these things can take time. One example of this is the experience of The Warriors at Scotstoun Stadium. It has taken time for everyone to understand how to manage big games and the fact is that its still a work in progress – but the Warriors, Glasgow Life, the council and the local community have all worked at managing the impact of big games on local communities. It may not be perfect but at least everyone knows what to expect.

Glasgow Life and the Games organisers have a short time to deal with this.

For everyone’s sake we have to hope they get it right.