To All Clubs and Members,
Motorcycle Sport in Scotland
It’s been a few weeks now since the SACU were given authority directly by the Scottish Government to get back to our sports. We are pleased to see that our Trials clubs have successfully started to put events on the ground, Stuart Flockhart has plans to get some motocross going soon and other plans are in place for other disciplines.
The Board of Directors, the Discipline Committees and Development Team worked hard to find ways back into sport that did everything to protect our riders and club officials. It was a long, often laborious task ensuring that the processes we were required to put in place were workable with minimal additional stress and work for clubs and event organisers.
We are aware there is disquiet among members and clubs, both at the delays in getting back to our sports and at some of the issues that have arisen over the last few weeks so we feel some explanation is necessary to ensure people understand what’s been happening.
Let us be clear, the delays in getting back to sport were down to the Scottish Government refusing to sanction our return to sport any sooner despite slowly opening out other sports. We were eventually given authority to return before any general opening of sport because of our robust, workable guidelines. Even today, sport in general still has elements of lockdown and despite some relaxation in the rules, several sports remain firmly “locked out”.
We believed we were in place to start issuing permits for small scale practice and club events as we entered Phase 2 of the easing of lockdown. Some local sign off rules, ie Police, NHS and Local Council were requested by our insurers to protect our clubs and members. However, without government sanction we could not return to sport.
I have used the terms “government authority” and “sanction” throughout this message. As of today, the SACU are the only body in territorial Scotland that are legally sanctioned by the Scottish Government to licence, permit and Insure motorcycle events. We have been questioned by sportscotland on the rulings that allow other permitting authorities to issue permits in Scotland leading to a legal review of permitting by sportscotland’s legal team and lawyers. We will fulfill our legal obligations in answering any questions put to us.
We were not happy with delays, we argued long and hard to get back to sport as early as possible, but we believe we were fundamentally right to stay within the law to protect our clubs and membership.
Covid-19 has changed society, until it returns to whatever normal will be in the future, we would ask our members to be patient. The First Minister changes what society can and cannot do almost daily, we will continue to follow that guidance both nationally and locally. We cannot predict when the norms we had before will return but be assured, we hope its soon as well.
Yours in Sport,
Maj A M Mack MBE
Chairman