Newcastle Urban

• Date: Sun 15^th Jun 2025
• Location: Assembly in front Great North Museum: Hancock, NE2 4PT

Following the Durham Spring Sprints in Durham organised by Northern Navigators on Saturday 14 June (part of the UKOL), we present Newcastle Urban on Sunday 15 June (part of the UKUL & UKOL).

On this classic-length urban event in Newcastle city centre, courses visit university campuses, streets and lonnens. This race forms part of the UK Urban League (UKUL), offering challenging age-group courses. Courses may cross churchyards, the town wall, Chinatown and other central areas of the Toon.

Assembly and start: Registration/download and kit/clothing tents on the grassed area in front of the Great North Museums: Hancock, NE2 4PT. No indoor assembly; tent available for kit/clothing bags. You can leave a car key at registration/download. The Start is within 50 metres of the Assembly and the Finish is located nearby on the Newcastle University campus. Approach from the south end of Claremont Road. Please do not walk through the campus on your way to the Assembly area.

Finish: follow the taped route back to Assembly, either via the steps or ramps. This route crosses a road using a light-controlled crossing.

Facilities: Coffee cart serving drinks and ice creams from 10:30am. Café and toilets open from 11am at the Great North Museum: Hancock adjacent to Assembly. See also this toilet map for nearby facilities.

Public transport: Newcastle central railway station 1.5 km from assembly, Manors railway station 1.2km

Eldon Square bus station 650m, Haymarket bus station 500m

Haymarket metro 400m, Manors metro 1.3km

Car parks: No designated event parking. Parking is available close to the assembly, for example at Claremont Road car park NE2 4AN (£3.00 fixed charge on Sundays), on-street at Park Terrace and Kensington Terrace (£1.50 per hour, maximum 5 hours. Blue Badge holders free), or Sandyford Square car park (£2.10 per hour, next to Newcastle Civic Centre). For council-run car parking, see here.

Terrain: Almost the whole of the City Centre, including Newcastle and Northumbria Universities, China Town, shopping and leisure areas, and parts of the Town Wall, including the town ditch. The ground largely slopes downwards from north to south, but the really steep-sided Tyne river banks are not visited.

Map: Updated and extended north and west 2024-25 by Fred Miller. Contours every 5m. 

Courses subject to final controlling. If you are new to orienteering, we recommend entering course 6 or 7. The age classes only apply if you want to compete in the orienteering leagues. Otherwise, over-16s can enter whatever course they want. Anyone aged under 16 on the day of the event may only enter course 6, 7 or 8.

No.	Length, straight line	No. of controls	Map scale, size
1. Open Men	7.4	31	1:4000 SRA3*
2. Vet. Men 40+, Open Women	6.5	33	1:4000 SRA3
3. Super Vet. Men 55+, Vet. Women 40+	5.4	29	1:4000 SRA3
4. Ultravet Men 65+, Supervet Women 55+	4.5	21	1:4000 SRA3
5. Hypervet. Men, Hypervet. Women	3.5	22	1:3000 SRA3
6. Junior 16 –	2.9	23	1:3000 A3
7. Young Junior 12-	2.0	22	1:3000 A3
8. Accessible, all ages	2.0	18	1:3000 A3

Safety: Anyone aged under 16 on the day of the event may only enter course 6, 7 or 8.

Orienteering is an adventure sport.  A comprehensive risk assessment for the event has been prepared and identified risks have been mitigated, however please be aware that participants take part at their own risk and are responsible for their own safety during the event.

Please note: The club will not be able to organise future events if the current event causes problems for members of the public. Please take care to avoid other users of the roads, pavements and spaces. They will not be expecting to encounter you, and it is not their responsibility to get out of your way.

· Participants are responsible for avoiding members of the public and should control their speed and route choices to achieve this. Note that approaching ‘noisily’ so that people might get out of the way may create a poor impression of the sport.

· Map reading should be performed in areas where there are low risks of collisions and competitors shall control their speed while reading the map to avoid collisions.

· Participants, should they collide with a member of the public, shall at least pause their runs while they check on the wellbeing of the person(s) they collided with.

· Participants shall report all incidents involving members of the public while they are competing.

Image credit: Roger