Supplementary Memorandum submitted by
Sheffield City Council and Sheffield International Venues
UNPICKING THE LOCK: WORLD ATHLETICS IN THE
UK
We are delighted to be called to give evidence
to the Select Committee and attach supplementary written evidence
for the Committee's attention.
In summary, Sheffield is ready, willing and
able to host the World Athletics Championships in 2005 and could
do so at a fraction of the cost for Picketts Lock. We would be
able to draw on our extensive experience of hosting national and
international sporting events over more than a decade and the
whole city would get behind making the event a success. In fact,
the only requirement for holding the games that we are not able
to meet is that we are not a capital city.
Much of the media coverage of this issue has
been inaccurate and misleading. To put the position beyond doubt
we should make clear:
— we did not seek to "lure"
the Championships away from London, but put forward Sheffield
to the Carter Review as an effective and affordable UK option
should the Pickets Lock proposal not prove feasible; and
— our discussions were done entirely
through the Carter Review team and subsequently DCMS officials,
and did not at any stage involve Ministers.
More worrying perhaps than the inaccuracies
has been the poor understanding of many national commentators
of the capacity and potential of Britain's major cities. Such
negative views of "second cities" would not be held
elsewhere in Europe. The "London-Centric" attitudes
that pervade much thinking in this country have implications that
go well beyond sport.
We hope that the IAAF will not dismiss the Sheffield
proposal without first having visited the city and seen what we
have to offer.
15 October 2001
| 
