Cars won’t be banned from the Sloc during the Parish Walk, race organisers say.

Support vehicles were bumper-to-bumper for this year’s event on June 19, clogging the steep stretch of road from Rushen to the Round Table that’s seen as one of the biggest challenges for walkers during the event. Traffic congestion in the south was also an issue.

Race director Raymond Cox says the Parish is a victim of its own success. More than 1,800 people registered to take part this year.

’It’s ironic, we have a walking race and we spend 80% of our time talking about cars,’ he said.

’We are frustrated by the traffic but the truth is, there is no solution. On Parish Walk day we have congestion on roads not designed for congestion. It’s one day a year and we are not going to rebuild the roads for it.

’People often ask us to ban cars from the route but we will have massive issues elsewhere if we do that. If we close the Sloc, for example, that will transfer all the traffic to the Ballamodha straight and create choke points.’

Mr Cox said the organisers are investigating mitigation measures, including expanding the number of no stopping and no waiting zones. He said educating the supporters of walkers was important, including encouraging sharing support vehicles.

’People want to cheer on their walker on the Sloc,’ he said, ’and do we want to take that support away? I don’t belittle the negative aspect but there’s the value of the encouragement of family and friends, and it’s squaring that.’

For the first time this year, a ’fanzone’ was created at Knockaloe, with support crew encouraged to park their vehicles in a designated field and use a free shuttle bus to get to the Peel stage where many walkers finish.

However, many chose to park on the route between Patrick and Peel, creating more hazards for walkers.

Support crew who attended are being asked to fill in a feedback survey that can be found on the Parish Walk website.

Mr Cox said: ’We are definitely bringing the fanzone back next year.

’It’s a way of encouraging cars to get off the road.

’The overall impression was that everybody who visited was very pleased with it. However, we need to attract lots more people and we need to ask why didn’t more people come? We’re looking at how we get our information across.’