Sunday 12:45 (very) provisional results uploaded
Tuesday 21:50 Corrected results, splits and RouteGadget results uploaded
Friday 12:15 Final results uploaded to Splitsbrowser, Attackpoint and BOF. Officals' comments added.
Saturday 12:30 Results uploaded to Nopesport Urban League, organisers comments added

Did you break the rules?
Control 208 was the corner between an impassable wall (with a fence on top) and hedge. The rules are clear that the thick black wall symbol on a sprint-spec map means 'forbidden to cross' (see legend on map), so the only way to access the control within the rules was to approach up the ramp about 60m up the road east. The leg from control 221 to 208 was carefully constructed to provide a route choice where route to the right for those who had worked out the access point in advance was shorter (about 230m) than the route to the left (about 280m) for those who were navigating to the edge of the circle. It was an interesting leg and was on both A (3-4) and B(8-9) courses.

The control was positioned as far from the fence as the security wire would allow, so it was not possible to just climb onto the wall and reach through the fence to punch. Later in the event it was moved a couple of metres further away. A number of people were seen climbing over or leaning right over the impassable wall, which is against the rules. They may not have realised that the wall was mapped as impassable, not being aware of the rules or perhaps just following the example of someone in front. We considered disqualifying people who had particularly fast splits on the inward and outward legs, but decided that we could not be sure that people had just had a burst of speed.

We would like to have the sanction of a time penalty but the rules do not allow this, so we have disqualified 7 people who have admitted breaking the rules. The results have now been finalised, so it is not possible to disqualify yourself for the above.

Results

Select results or splits
RouteGadget
Splitsbrowser
The officials' comments are available below.
The results have been uploaded to British Orienteering and Nopesport Urban League.
Photos (by Wendy Carlyle)

Comments

Organiser's comments
My main concerns prior to the event were the local residents. There had been some adverse publicity prior to the event and also every time we visited the area there always seemed to be a police presence. Placing controls was also a bit tricker, trying to make sure they were placed in situations which would not cause any issues with residents. It turned out I worried unduly, the only issue of note was one competitor reported water being poured over his head when he passed a block of flats.

Another thing I was not really happy with was the long walk back to assembly. It was worth it though, because the school was an excellent venue, providing good facilities and car park.

I was pleased with the map which I thought was very easy to read.

Simon put in a lot of work planning the courses, which seemed to provide a lot of good route choice options. Due to holidays and tours he had to start planning before the maps were completed, and complete in a short time scale. One of the planned legs on course A and B caused some people problems. Myself, Simon and Peter were very happy with this leg. It did catch a few people out, some of whom then reached through the fence to punch the control. I believe most people would interpret this as being against the rules. As a result we asked people to volunteer to disqualify themselves. Some did so, and I would like to thank them for their honesty. I believe there were a few more who should have been disqualified. Most people running these courses should have had enough experience to realise they were doing wrong.

I would like to thank Peter for the tremendous amount of work he put into the whole event. Also Ian Cooper for helping produce the map.

Paul Bradbury

Planner's comments
This was the first large event which I had planned for so I was looking forward to it. It was a challenge trying to get the courses to be technically difficult on such an open area with the limit of 30 controls on each course and also to accommodate a range of age classes (The B course had WO to M70+).

It's a shame about control the fence at control 208 and the hedge between 203 and 204 both of which could have been solved simply before the event.

Thanks to all the helpers and organisers but particularly to the controller Peter Gorvett for mapping, controlling and organising the control hanging.

Simon Bradbury

Mapper/controller comments
Apologies for missing the gap at the end of the hedge at the top of the building near the finish, which was mapped as impassable. Simon had noticed it, but when I went out to check I misunderstood and added a gap in the hedge two buildings further east. The gap was blocked with branches and then with tape after the branches had been kicked aside for the second time (possibly by locals). Given the use of red-white tape to mark a crossing point elsewhere, it would have been better with black and yellow tape. Next time I'll try to make sure I'm carrying some in case something similar happens.

Map
There were a few mapping challenges in this area, with so many buildings with individual distinct boundaries.

The IOF defines a bridge as being "A crossing point over a watercourse, or other linear feature", so the bridges over grass to the blocks in the south were not bridges by that definition. In addition the "wings" on the bridge symbol would disappear into the black building outline and impassible walls, so I decided to map them as canopies. Alternative suggestions welcome.

The garden boundaries around the "star" blocks were varied and changeable (comparing Google Streetview and reality suggests that there is a steady increase in legal enclosures and the occasional removal of illegal ones). I started mapping without defining these boundaries (as walls, fences or hedges), but after discussion during WMOC in Hungary I decided I needed to add them, which of course increased the workload (mpping ended up nearly a half-time job for more than two months).

Controlling
Simon Bradbury put a great deal of work into producing well-thought out courses with many route-choice opportunities. It is gratifying to see Routegadget showing legs with three-way splits in route and several where half the field went one way and the other half another. Simon planned local events since his first in 2009 as a first year M16, but this was his first regional event. He handled the extra rigour required for this level of event very well and it was good to work with him.

I was disappointed that a number of people crossed the "impassable wall" at control 208 (see "did you break the rules" above). I put the control out; I had been kicking myself for not using two joined security wires to stop people leaning over the fence on top of the wall (which wasn't very high at the northern end), but one or two people were seen climbing over and a longer wire or the position by the hedge that was used later in the event would not have stopped that..

I'm not sure that people deliberately broke the rules. It is perhaps worth a notice at the start for newcomers to urban orienteering that on sprint-specification maps thick black or very dark green lines are "forbidden to cross".

Peter Gorvett (petergorvett at Hotmail dot co dot uk)