Festival offers convenient bike parking option for Sunday Local Residents Ticket holders …
If you are one of the lucky ones who snagged a Sunday local resident ticket, the team at Boomtown festival have confirmed that you have the option to leave your bikes at the A272 entrance as follows:
“Sunday local ticket arrivals by cycle are more than welcome to access the site off the A272, we will have a small bike storage area situated by the pedestrian gate, this will be created with pedestrian barrier and will be signed, unsecured but in a location with a 24/7 security deployment. We also have CCTV in the area, but there are no guarantees this would be facing in the correct direction”
Note this is for Sunday ticket holders only – there is secure parking on site for those attending the entire festival.
… but Winchester Station confirms the same unsatisfactory arrangement as 2023
Boomtown festival actively encourages the use of public transport – however it does have some consequences.
Last year to facilitate the large numbers of festival goers using the station the “temporary” bike racks in front of the station were relocated to a corner of the multi-storey car park; there was then a lengthy delay in returning the racks to the front of the station. This may have contributed to the surge in bike thefts as users were forced to use the more risky Bike Hub and multi-storey car park locations.
Rather late in the day we have learnt that the racks will again be moved to the multi-storey car park. If you currently use the racks at the front of the station you should be aware that these maybe unavailable; in our view the alternative options of the Bike Hub and multi-storey car park racks are higher risk locations as they have no natural surveillance. We have made SWR aware of our concerns and we hope the racks will be speedily returned to the station forecourt if they are moved.
Needless to say if the racks by the trees were available this issue might not have arisen. However currently there is no sign of progress removing the barriers from the trees and racks.