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The legacy begins: £30m boost for sport at grassroots
Matthew Beard28.04.09
Six community projects are to become the first beneficiaries of Boris Johnson's £30 million scheme to boost sports participation as a legacy of the London Olympics.
Judo, boxing, tennis, swimming, disabled sport and “street” athletic groups will receive backing as the Mayor seeks to fulfil his election pledge that benefits of the 2012 Games are delivered at grassroots level.
The first six projects will receive their grants at the end of a statutory tender process next month.
Devised by City Hall sports commissioner Kate Hoey, the Sporting Future scheme aims to improve facilities and coaching but to reduce inactivity in London where only one in five adults regularly plays sport.
Mr Johnson commissioned today's sports strategy to improve these below-average levels of participation and he believes this will also combat obesity and youth crime.
Much is at stake for the Mayor whose other election pledge — to cut the 2012 construction bill — proved impractical and threatened the building timetable. Meanwhile, the cornerstone of his Games legacy — a sports university in the Olympic Park — remains on the drawing board.
Mr Johnson has provided £15.5 million towards sports legacy from London Development Agency coffers.
A similar sum will be taken from the commercial sector and other public bodies to take the total to £31 million over the next three years. The major source will be Sport England, a government agency with an annual budget of £120 million to boost sports participation by one million people by 2013.
Although this sum is insufficient for major new facilities such as swimming pools and running tracks, its aim is to ensure the best existing projects, such as a tennis coaching scheme on council courts, are adopted by other boroughs. The board will also attempt to organise local sport better, for example, by unifying London's five community basketball schemes.
It will also use the findings of a facilities audit to plug provision. Key to this aim will be to rotate mobile pools among boroughs with fewer permanent public baths.
Efforts to produce a 2012 sports legacy will be overseen by a London Community Sports Board chaired by Ms Hoey and will be formed next month.
Launching the scheme at Croydon Judo Club today, Mr Johnson sought to distance himself from the priorities of Ken Livingstone, who stressed the 2012 project as a means of redistributing wealth to the east of London.
The Mayor said: “We have a unique opportunity to set in place a lasting legacy for sport provision across the capital.
“This is an opportunity to increase participation and activity, tackle health inequalities and bring the capital's communities together.”
Ms Hoey added: “We are determined to use this investment to add value to ongoing work and to make real improvements at the grassroots of sport.”
Reader views (6)
We tax payers have had billions of pounds of toxic debt foisted upon us in the bid to provide an egotistical group of "has been" athletes with the means of getting their photographs back onto the front pages of our newspapers. The only medals worth awarding - and worth having - are the medals which have been earned by our soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. I don't place very much value on medals awarded for "running around a track".
- R.F., Yorks, UK
The only 'legacy' we're going to be left with from this fiasco, is a gigantic bill that will take decades to payoff!
Of course the guilty people, the pompous, arrogant timewasters: has-been athletes and politicians, will have long since disappeared from the scene with their gongs.
Legacy, my a***!
- Lb, Bromley
Perhaps Boris can explain why Tom Russell, who was very successful in the regeneration of Manchester post- Commonwealth Games, has resigned from his post leading Olympic Legacy?
Could it possibly be because there will not be a substantive Olympic legacy (a few millions to get people to run faster does not count) and that the Govt have been held over a barrel by the ODA and the fear of the games not being ready in time? The consequence is that we are getting the most boring venues ever, which if the rumours are true will, after the games are finished, suffer the same difficulties or worse that the Dome had in finding a usage that will pay for their construction.
- Mike, london
The Olympics, and the much puffed but little realised so called legacy, are the worst case of the Emperors New Clothes that I have ever seen. It is not surprising that the ever self deluding Labour shower are so keen on them but grossly disappointing that the Tories have fallen for this new urban myth of benefits comensurate with the outrageous costs too.
- Matt, London, UK
If this raises the general level of healthy activity,it's a small expense. But it's got nothing to do with the Olympics really, is it? the Olympics isn't paying for it, it's just taking tthe PR credit.
- Mdj E10, london uk
Gosh, what this country REALLY needs now is faster runners! - WELL SPENT!
PS - Don`t think the olympics will encourage healthy lifestyles amongst the young - it won`t.
Good parenting will.
Perhaps a gold for this --- Nah!
- Darius Midwinter, London UK
