Organisers: are road races becoming oversubscribed?

i feel your pain, being from Guernsey when i travel to england i would like to just get stuck in to national b level races, but having only got 37 points last season and BC not being willing to upgrade me to 2nd cat i have had to enter some 2,3,4 crits and lower level road races purely to i can get the points, it seems unless you are in a bigish team or have a ton of points getting a ride in national b races if very unlikely

Short answer - Yes.

But I think the reason for this is that compared to years ago there are less races promoted now. A number of reasons for this; the amount of effort needed to promote a road race, the bureaucracy of BC plus the money they want from the promoting club, the hassle of getting marshalls, helpers, commissaires, drivers etc, police permission, residents complaining. Also the fact that a lot of people now are setting up small race teams and the majority of these do not promote events like a club would as they don't have the membership, just people who race. Plus with sportives you can make a profit, a race will generally break even as the profits are given away in prizes.
I raced a lot in the 90's and come back to it every few years and there are very few races to get to without travelling long distances. Our club promotes 2 open races and 2 association races (as well as 2 sportives and open time trials) and the 3/4 cat road race is always well oversubscribed by probably 100% but we just manage to get a full field for the E/1/2/3.
There are lots of people who like yourself want to ride a few easy 3/4 cat races, get a few results but don't want to move up to 2nd cat and ride harder races, maybe through not having the time to train.

Instead of commentating on this race or lack of, do as TT said and put on an event?
Try to contact your local BC regional event officer, it really is very straight forward, the BC rep will guide you through the process and you can even do a organisers course and get a decent lunch

The BC region deal with a lot of the stuff (if needed) like councils and Police, all you have to do is sort out a minimal amount of paper work and poss the hardest bit, get together enough Marshalls and drivers.

I think you are wrong there, i doubt many folk object to ideas or constructive crit... nah they do yes TT perhaps came across a bit strong, but the OP suggested if there was anyway to meet the high demand for certain types of racing ie 3/4....yes there is.... put on more 3/4 races OR go the other way and make the costs of such racing v. high = reduced demand.

In my experience early season races always seem to be a lot busier and are often oversubscribed. I guess everyone’s optimistic and full of enthusiasm at this time of year. Come later in the summer you’ll find you can still EOL for a lot of events.

Dave, the problem is that one of the reasons that races get over-subscribed is that there just aren't enough of them. Plenty of people offer constructive criticism but aren't prepared to put their money where their mouth is and have a go at organising. Once you have done it you appreciate the amount of issues there are that have to be considered. For example, someone was recently bemoaning the early starts for Sunday races meaning he couldn't get to them by train but for a race organiser that would be a long way down a list of things they have to consider. I agree the OP wasn't complaining and TT's response was a bit harsh but if more people can be found to organise races then there will be more spaces available to all and each organiser can decide their strategy for deciding who to accept (first come, first served; most points, least points, people from clubs who promote races etc.). It's hard work putting on a race and it comes down to the same few people in each region every year to the point where they get fed up and we lose another race and those that remain become even more over-subscribed!