Hastings 2019

It was my first time at Hastings Bus Rally, and their first time at a new venue.

Frankly, I hope they don't use the site again as it just wasn't suitable for a bus rally.

For starters one had to squeeze between two bollards to enter the roadway off the main drag, then it was an immediate and tight left turn to access the display area. The display area itself wasn't wide enough to accomodate buses on both sides but the marshalls persisted with parking vehicles opposite each other regardless - as a result it took me 8 shunts to get my coach into position.

I left my coach in the display area whilst I went for an explore and when I returned I found Ensign's Enviro parked at an angle to the coach such that it was blocking access to the rear emergency exit door on the coach. Given that I'd blocked the front entrance door of the coach with a piece of wood to prevent unauthorised access, the plan was to access the vehicle via the emergency door which I can lock with a key. But of course with the Enviro parked as it was, I had no access to my vehicle.

I would stress that this was in no way the fault of the Ensign driver. He'd simply parked his vehicle under the guidance of the marshalls and they were trying to make the vehicle fit in the only [unsuitable] space available.

Vehicles struggled to manovoure around the extremely tight display area with several shunts often required to get into or out of display positions.

W649FUM on display

This image shows the blocked rear emergency exit door

And the end of the day was just as bad with a now tight right turn to get through the tight bollards.

Whoever looked at this site and thought is was suitable......it just wasn't I'm afraid.