Tour de France: Exciting times ahead for Pennines

The Pennines Business and Tourism Forum logo

The Pennines Business and Tourism Forum met at Wardle on Tuesday 26 November and outlined exciting plans to coincide with the coming of the Tour de France to our area in July 2014.

The chairman, John Kay, who is also a director of Rochdale Online, said: “Everything we are doing is designed to help boost local businesses by driving up local tourism”.

The focus for July 2014 is to bring together a rolling program of events around the Tour de France weekend of 5/6 July to attract, entertain and impress some of the extra 160,000 tourists forecast to visit our area as spectators for the Tour de France.

These events range from guided cycling rides and cyclist’s market to dragon boat racing on Hollingworth Lake to a rock festival at Littleborough and an “Eat the World” food festival involving local restaurants.

Nick Andrews, the Forum secretary and in charge of the Tour de France events project, commented: “We need as many local businesses as possible to come on board or to be aware of what we are doing.

"Please visit www.pennineforum.co.uk for more information.”