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Hoey: £10m needed for grassroots sport
Pippa Crerar and Matthew Beard14.10.08
BORIS Johnson needs to invest at least £10million in funding for grassroots sport to kick-start London's sporting legacy from the Olympics.
Kate Hoey, the Mayor's commissioner for sport, said the London Development Agency investment was the "minimum requirement" if he was serious about delivering on his promises.
She said that extra funding would come from other sources, including local councils, the private sector and individual sport governing bodies which have Sport England's millions behind them.
Ms Hoey said she was "confident" she would be able to raise enough money for grassroots sports but later admitted much of her thinking was based on "wish lists".
It comes after the London Assembly's Economic Development, Sports and Culture committee said the 2012 Games could leave little or no sporting legacy unless sufficient funding was put in place. The Mayor's Olympics sporting legacy plan will be unveiled in January.
At a hearing of the committee at City Hall this morning, Ms Hoey stressed the importance of investing for the long term. She criticised Ken Livingstone's regime for funding one-off sporting events that had no lasting impact, saying she was "horrified" at how much of the money earmarked for the Summer of Sport scheme went on administration.
Ms Hoey said school sport facilities should be open to Londoners in the evenings and at weekends and that it was "unbelievable" schools like Stockwell Park and Pimlico were being rebuilt without their original pools. Mr Johnson must make sure the 10 City academies he was planning to bankroll with LDA funds contained facilities that would be open to local communities, she said.
She also suggested a cross-capital leisure access card, working along similar lines to the Oyster card system. She revealed that many of the big-name Olympic sponsors had suggested they would like to invest at the "less sexy" grassroots level.
Ms Hoey warned that the £10 million would not be sufficient to build new sporting venues but would help develop coaching and expand facilities that already existed. "I've got a feel for what would be a minimum requirement if we're realistic about what we can do," she added.
Reader views (1)
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