If a Club wants a new course for club or open events the course design process is relatively simple.
1. Identify a road or roads you wish to use and produce a course description. Examples of course descriptions are in many of the existing Risk Assessements. The course description is what you will use when producing your Police Notification Form. It should read in a similar format to this:
START (G.R. 995 827) 150 m NW of Idover Lane, Dauntsey Green Jn. Continue northwest along Idover Lane towards Little Somerford. In Little Sommerford turn left towards Great Sommerford. Continue through Great Somerford to Sutton Benger where turn left to join the B4069. Continue along B4069, turn left at Swallett Gate junction. Continue over the M4 moterway bridge. Turn Left into Dauntsey village. Continue along this road until the start area is passed. Continue this loop a further 4 times.
2. Carry out a risk assessment on the course, including where the start and finish are and where and identify where signage and observers will be required. Particular attention will need to be paid to any roads with 20mph speed restrictions, traffic calming or right turns. A full list of existing Risk Assessments are here. Risk Assessment this is an example which includes all requirements UC865S. Use the Risk Assessment template which can be downloaded here
3. Carry out a traffic count for the course at the times you wish to use it, example Saturday traffic count may be unacceptable but a Sunday at the same time is. If traffic counts are high or higher than you expect have you taken it on a day where there is a local event? Some courses may not be used during half terms, public holiday weekends or Easter / Summer school holidays as traffic may increase as people transit to local motorway junctions.
4. Complete the course description, the Risk Assessment and ideally produce a tcx/gpx file or a link to appropriate mapping application such as Ride With GPS https://ridewithgps.com/routes/35941201
5. Submit your information to West DC Events Secretary and Risk Assessment Secretary. They will forward to the Committee for approval once basic checks have been completed.
6. If the course is a non standard distance say 19 miles then if approved then the mileage from a Garmin route will usually be enough. However if a standard distance 10 or 25 miles, whatever you submit from your Garmin or similar will usually require a formal measurement especially if the course is to be used as an Open Course.
7. It is useful if you use a What3Words reference to allow the course start and finish to be located and Wiltshire Police have requested that courses are described to them via What3Words as well as using standard road name descriptions.