Bath Road, Broughton Road, Banbury Road, Sandfine Road and Main Road all close from 09:45 on Sunday 6 September for the town's first 10K. About 800 runners.
Banbury’s first 10K road race runs on Sunday 6 September, and it closes six roads between 09:45 and 13:00. Oxfordshire County Council made the special event order on 1 September. It expects around 800 runners, and says many spectators will come with them.
The order closes the following at those times:
- Bath Road, entire length
- Broughton Road, from Bath Road to Banbury Road
- Banbury Road, from Broughton Road to Sandfine Road
- Sandfine Road, from Banbury Road to Main Road
- Main Road, from Sandfine Road to Broughton Road
- Broughton Road, from Main Road to Bath Road
- The B4035 roundabout at Woodgreen Avenue and Queensway
No waiting, loading or unloading applies across the event that Sunday.
Read down that list and the shape of the course is obvious. It is a loop. It starts on Bath Road, in Neithrop, next to People’s Park, runs out along Broughton Road, and picks up Sandfine Road and Main Road at Broughton, a village about two and a half miles south-west of the town. Then it comes back the way it went.
The order puts the start and the finish inside People’s Park. The organiser’s own entry page gives the event address as Broad Street, OX16 5JG.
What it means for you
If you live inside the loop, plan Sunday morning around it. Neithrop, the Bath Road and Broughton Road streets and the village of Broughton are all affected for a little over three hours. There is no signed diversion route in the order: it says alternative routes will be signed locally on the day, and marshals will control the crossings.
13:00 is the outside time, not a fixed one. The order says timings are subject to the roads opening once the final runner has passed. On a 10K with 800 entrants, most of the course is likely to clear well before then, but nothing in the order promises it.
If you need to get out, you probably can. Exemptions cover emergency services, controlled access to property, and support vehicles working for the event. That is not the same as free movement, and the order leaves the practical detail to the marshals.
The B4035 roundabout closure is the one that catches people who are not going anywhere near the race. Woodgreen Avenue and Queensway is a route across the west of the town, and closing the roundabout affects traffic that has no reason to know a race is on.
Anyone driving in or through Banbury has a second thing to plan around. The A361 at Southam Road and Horse Fair is closed overnight to through traffic until 11 September for resurfacing, and waiting is banned on the closed length. Every current closure in the district is here.
Who is running it
The race is organised by Raceways Events C.I.C., a community interest company registered at Companies House as number 08632449. It was incorporated on 31 July 2013, its registered office is at Oversley Green, Alcester in Warwickshire, and its filed business activity is “other sports activities”. The event order names Daniel Jones of Raceways Events as the organiser and gives a correspondence address at Hockley Heath.
The organiser’s own entry page calls it “the very first Banbury 10K” and says entries are open. The council’s order does not state a start time. It only sets the hours in which the roads are shut, which begin at 09:45.
Where the paperwork is
The order was made under section 14 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 as a special event order, the mechanism councils use to close roads for races and parades rather than for works. It was published as a public notice on 20 August, and the council says full particulars can be inspected at oxfordshire.gov.uk/eventorders. The streetworks team can be reached on 0345 310 1111.
If you are parking in town that day rather than driving through it, the current Banbury car park tariffs are here. Sundays are charged until 6pm.
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