Sir,

Why was Ironman blasting out loud rock music at top volume in New Hedges until 11.30 pm on Sunday night? What right do the Ironman organisers have to disturb residents to such a degree that some elderly people were left in tears, unable to sleep because of the noise?

This late night disturbance happens every year and whilst we applaud the athleticism and fundraising of participants and understand that many local businesses benefit from the race, this does not give Ironman the right to be such a public nuisance.

Also, why are the street-cleaning team unable to remove Ironman rubbish that’s smaller than one square inch? The drink station areas at New Hedges are still awash with multicoloured confetti of torn refreshment strips, discarded coloured lap bands, hundreds of gold metallic bag-ties, plus crisp bags, Haribo bags and other detritus that wasn’t there the day before. Not to mention once-sodden tissue paper trodden into the pavement in front of the temporary toilet cubicles.

A drive into Tenby shows plenty of other uncollected Ironman rubbish scattered on the roadside several days later.

In good grace, we put up with months of negotiating around cyclists practising for the event on local roads, being stuck in our homes from 8.30 am on race day until 12.30 am the following day, the closure of our churches and loud noise during the whole event. But to keep the music so loud, so late into the night, shows utter disdain on the part of Ironman organisers for New Hedges residents and if the cleaning team cannot be bothered to do a proper job, then perhaps the time has come to move the New Hedges ‘Lap Station’ to another district and leave us all in peace.

Pull your socks up, Ironman, enough is enough.

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