Examination of Witnesses (Questions 156
- 159)
TUESDAY 23 OCTOBER 2001
MR DAVID
HEMERY, MBE, MR
DAVID MOORCROFT,
OBE, MR ADAM
WALKER AND
MR ROB
BORTHWICK
Chairman: Good morning, gentlemen. We
have lots of questions and we will start straight away.
Michael Fabricant
156. In your submission to us you say: "The
desire to stage major events was partly based on the principle
that a legacy should be left from the considerable investment
made. It was the absence of a legacy for athletics in the original
Wembley proposal for the World Championships in Athletics that
prompted the then Secretary of State, Chris Smith, to withdraw
athletics from Wembley . . .", and you agree with that. Do
you still agree with that point of view?
(Mr Moorcroft) I think there are a number
of ways in which a legacy can be delivered. I think the purpose
of having major events in the country is to leave a legacy. That
legacy can be an inspiration to athletes and young people to wish
to take part in events or future championships; or it can be a
physical legacy. The Secretary of State made the decision that
Wembley did not reflect good value or a legacy, and we were offered
an opportunity of developing another site that did provide that
legacy. I think one of our frustrations in the process has been
that Picketts Lock has been referred to too often as a "stadium",
the notion that it was just a stadium in isolation. It was very
much the centre that was the concept; the notion that you could
have young people, schools, clubs, league level athletes, indoors/outdoors,
52-weeks-of-the-year-athletics around that one site. Having said
that, we do accept that Picketts Lock will not be going ahead,
and that is not a call to reopen that debate. It was to deliver
the legacy in that way. I think the challenge we have with major
events in this country, if we have the courage to go for major
events (and that is a big "if") but if we do have the
courage that we can accept they come at a great cost and do our
best to provide value for that cost. The Commonwealth Games come
at a greater cost, and many of the facilities will be left with
a lasting legacy for sport. It is probably a little unfortunate
that the major stadium has to transfer to football to deliver
the legacy; but every effort was made to deliver a legacy benefit
from those games. I think you can have the best of both worlds
but it does come at a cost.
Chairman
157. I am very proud of the fact that we have
this wonderful stadium going up in Manchester, but if it had not
been arranged after the Commonwealth Games that it was to be transferred
to Manchester City Football Club what would it have been used
for?
(Mr Moorcroft) I think possibly that was the only
outcome. I think it is fair to accept that around the world, including
Sydney, the fantastic job of the Sydney Olympic Games was the
problem of what do you do with the stadium. I think there are
three options: one is that the stadium lays dormant, which is
probably the Sydney problem; the other is that it is given then
to football, because football, or maybe rugby, is probably the
only sport that can sustain it from a business point of view—whether
it has the community benefits is another point; the third option
is what I think we are trying to achieve at Picketts Lock, to
say that it comes at a cost, but it is a cost rather than a deficit,
and there are ways in which you can fund that deficit/that cost
but for huge community benefits. We tested that model, and that
model has failed, I accept that. I think that is an alternative
route that was worth considering.
158. What is the benefit? Somewhere in north-east
London it was decided for a while, until sense prevailed, to have
this stadium. It was going to stage the World Athletics Championships
in 2005. What would have happened to it afterwards? What would
it have been used for? There is a limit to rock concerts and things
of that nature. Would the legacy have been a beautiful state of
the art stadium would have stood there?
(Mr Moorcroft) There were actually more event days
in the stadium than Twickenham, and clearly Wimbledon because
of the nature of tennis. There were more event days but the difference
was, a very significant difference, on each occasion that athletics
took part in that stadium it would not necessarily be a full house.
The value of it was in terms of the quality of the stadium, the
ability to hold a multitude of events—from world championships,
European championships and other major international events but
significant domestic events like English Schools Championships
and London Championships; and with the indoor facility, which
currently does not exist and we are working to hang on to that,
that you have a whole winter based programme of indoor competition
that is hugely significant in the south of England, then a community
track and a dedicated throws field. The massed number of people
that would be on that site within a 12 month period is huge. The
difference is, whereas Wembley is a relatively small number of
professional footballers taking part in a facility viewed by hundreds
of thousands of spectators, what you had with the National Athletics
Centre was many thousands of people participating but not always
in front of a big crowd. It was the crowd thing which I think
caused the confusion. I had one of my aims to compete in White
City. I went to meetings in White City where it was a full house
and I watched Dave Hemery in 1967, Great Britain versus USA, but
my aim was to try and compete at White City; it was a temple of
athletics. When I did compete there, there was not a big crowd
but it was a massive catalyst and a very important part of my
development as an athlete. We do accept, and I am not trying to
reopen the Picketts Lock debate, that that would have come at
a cost and there were issues to do with transport and accommodation
that clearly needed to come under other agencies to help solve.
We do accept that judgment has been made and we now have to move
on.
159. The taxpayer did not pay for Wimbledon;
the taxpayer did not pay for Twickenham; the taxpayer did not
pay for Wembley; they were all private projects. Why should the
taxpayer pay for this huge toy?
(Mr Moorcroft) £120 million of Lottery money,
which is therefore public money, as you rightly said earlier on
has gone into Wembley and I do not have a problem with that.
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