Tour de Yorkshire fans told race could return in 2024

Silicon Dales bought rights from Welcome to Yorkshire – as well as the website Yorkshire.com and 163 other domain names – as the tourism agency went into administration last month and its assets were sold at auction.

Managing director Robin Scott, who is from Leyburn, said it would be “nearly impossible” to stage the race in 2023, but it could return the following year.

“2024 is the 10-year anniversary of the Grand Départ in Yorkshire. We’ve got to do something for that, we’ve absolutely got to,” he said.

“We want to save the legacy of the Grand Départ and, personally, I want to save that. I'm from Yorkshire and I was living in Yorkshire when it happened. It was a terrific event.”

The 2022 Tour de Yorkshire was cancelled last year, after the 2020 and 2021 races were called off, as co-organisers Amaury Sport Organisation and Welcome to Yorkshire said it “would be unviable” due to “the impact of the Covid-19, combined with escalating financial challenges”.

It has struggled to attract sponsorship in recent years and Welcome to Yorkshire claimed last year it was no longer in a position to subsidise the event. It then called on nine councils to each provide £100,000 of financial support and another £100,000 to cover potential sponsorship losses.

Silicon Dales is an ecommerce marketing agency, based in Manchester, which develops websites and provides technical support to a range of companies.

Mr Scott said his company is not looking to become a new tourism agency – but it will operate Yorkshire.com from a new office in York and work with tourism and hospitality businesses to promote the region.

Welcome to Yorkshire was a private company but it was reliant on millions of pounds of public funding provided by local councils.

The organisation went into administration last month – following years of financial struggles and a series of PR disasters – as Yorkshire Leaders Board, which comprises council leaders from across the region, decided to stop funding it after a £25,000 independent review.

The organisation owed more than £2m to creditors when it went into administration last month - including over £1m to a local government pension fund.

The tourism agency was originally led by Sir Gary Verity, who received a knighthood for bringing the Tour de France to Yorkshire in 2014, but he left on health grounds in 2019, amid allegations he had bullied staff and misused expenses.

His successor James Mason joined Welcome to Yorkshire in January 2020 but left the organisation last October in the midst of an investigation into an unspecified complaint.

Plans to set up a new Destination Marketing Organisation to promote Yorkshire are currently being explored by council bosses and they will discuss them in more detail at a meeting in next month.