Appendix 1
Letter to the Chairman of the Committee
from the Chairman of Sport England
Since giving oral evidence to your inquiry on 1 March,
I have continued to take a close interest in its proceedings,
and thought it might be helpful if I clarified a number of points
which emerged during yesterday's hearing:
— first, it was suggested that Sport
England had long regarded the Copelands School site as a "non-starter"
for the new Wembley Stadium's warm-up track. This is not the case.
We have always made it clear that Copelands School could have
provided an acceptable warm-up track for the World Athletics Championships
in 2005. We have been equally consistent in saying that it would
not have been suitable for a Wembley-based London Olympics, in
the event of the BOA choosing to launch such a bid. This position
has been made clear on several occasions—including (i) in
our evidence to last year's Wembley National Stadium inquiry
and (ii) in a detailed follow-up letter to the Committee Clerk
[9 May 2000], who had asked for further information on our approach
to the Copelands option. As the DCMS Press Office was aware that
a journalist, from the Financial Times, was about to publish
a story on this subject, I copied this letter to the Secretary
of State (also on 9 May);
— second, the Committee heard that
Sport England had "committed" £60 million to Picketts
Lock. Again, I believe this needs to be clarified, as we have
long made it clear that no such money has yet been committed to
the project. While we knew that UK Athletics and its partners
were likely to seek such support for a new national athletics
centre, and this figure was duly 'factored' into our financial
plans, we could not commit—and have not committed—Lottery
money to a project that has yet to come forward with an application
for funding. We have made this clear at every possible opportunity,
and it is almost exactly a year since I wrote to the Secretary
of State (on 23 March 2000) to express my concern at statements
which suggested, unconditionally, that we had £60 million
to devote to an athletics facility. Indeed, the Secretary of State's
reply (19 April 2000) stated that "the Government is fully
aware that no funds have been guaranteed to UK Athletics for their
[proposed] stadium and any Lottery grant will be dependent on
the merits of the application submitted". This remains the
position. In fact, when I chaired our Council meeting in February
2001, Picketts Lock was debated at some length and, as the minutes
state, we concluded that "No pre-judgement could or would
take place", and we would have to await the Lottery application
from UK Athletics and the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority,
which would then be judged "against the Council's standard
criteria". Again, copies of this documentation went to the
DCMS; and
— third, I must beg to differ from
the suggestion that the £20 million payment was "agreed
between the Football Association and Sport England". As we
indicated in our evidence to the Committee, this agreement was
reached between the Secretary of State and Ken Bates (the then
Chairman of WNSL) on 23 December 1999, without any Sport England
involvement.
I hope this information proves helpful to the Committee
as it concludes its inquiry into Staging International Sporting
Events. For obvious reasons, a copy of this letter goes to
the Secretary of State.
22 March 2001
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