Memorandum submitted by the Department
for Culture, Media and Sport
LEE VALLEY NATIONAL ATHLETICS CENTRE
Introduction
1. Since the Culture, Media and Sport Select
Committee announced in July its intention to conduct an enquiry
into the state of play on securing a national stadium for athletics
at Picketts Lock in the Lee Valley Regional Park, the Government
has announced that the project will not proceed following discussion
between Sport England and the Government in the light of Patrick
Carter's report on the project. This memorandum, therefore, sets
out in some detail recent events and the rationale for the Government's
decision.
2. Before setting out recent events, the
Government would like to make clear that it does not regard the
failure of the Lee Valley National Athletics Centre project as
directly attributable to the actions of the Lee Valley project
team. Indeed, the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority and, in particular,
the commitment of its Chief Executive Shaun Dawson, has enabled
the project to achieve a great deal in a very short period. Rather
it was the risks associated with the development of the new stadium,
the budgetary uncertainty and the scale of infrastructure improvements
needed which led to the Government to act decisively to end the
project.
3. Sport England's memorandum to the Committee
has explained the background to the Lee Valley project including
the approach to DCMS Ministers in June 2001 to discuss the Council's
concerns with the Lottery application from the Lee Valley project
team. The Government agreed with Sport England that Patrick Carter
should be asked to review the Lee Valley project. His report was
received by Sport England and the Department on 31 August 2001.
The Government/Sport England Decision
4. The report's conclusions are very clear.
Since the commitment was made to host the 2005 World Athletics
Championships the anticipated cost of providing the stadium and
running the event has increased and there is a serious risk that
further expenditure would be necessary to deal with newly emerging
shortcomings in accommodation and transport provision. As a result,
there was a significant risk that the 2005 World Athletics Championships
held at Lee Valley would be a poor quality event with very large
financial implications, and that this would not represent value
for money. Finally, the report concluded that even if such an
investment were made, there was a significant likelihood that
the stadium and the related facilities would not be completed
in time.
5. Patrick Carter was also asked by Sport
England to look at alternative venues for staging the Championships
if, in his opinion, the Lee Valley project could not be funded
and managed in its current form. This section of the report has
been discussed with UK Athletics but has not been published as
it contains commercial information material to the discussion
between Government/Sport England and the potential alternative
venues to Lee Valley and relevant to the continuing discussions
with Sheffield City Council to stage the Championships. Patrick
Carter concluded that there was no other suitable London site
that could be ready in time for 2005 and that if the UK were to
stage the Championships, a non-London venue would have to be used.
He assessed a range of non-London alternatives.
6. Having received and read the report,
which raised the possibility of Sheffield as an alternative location
to London, the Secretary of State issued an instruction to the
effect that the report and associated papers should not be seen
by the Minister for Sport. The Minister for Sport entirely concurred
with this action. Both Ministers agreed that, once a decision
had been made on the Lee Valley project and/or an alternative
location, then he would be brought into discussions and papers
would be circulated to him in the usual way. An instruction to
this effect was issued in accordance with the Ministerial Code
on 3 September.
7. DCMS sought Sport England's reaction
to the Carter report and this was provided by Sport England officials
on 14 September. The Chairman of Sport England then met the Secretary
of State to discuss the project on 24 September. The Secretary
of State and he agreed that the changes which have taken place
since the time of the UK's bid, and identified in Patrick Carter's
report, made it impossible for the Government to guarantee to
the IAAF that it could deliver a World Athletics Championships
at Picketts Lock of the quality and standard that the IAAF has
a right to expect and the UK wants to deliver.
8. In particular, there was a serious risk
that the necessary improvements to the transport infrastructure
would not be made in time, and that athletes' accommodation would
not be available within a reasonable distance of Picketts Lock.
It was therefore agreed that DCMS and Sport England officials
would look quickly at the practicability of the non-London options.
9. DCMS and Sport England officials initiated
discussions with representatives of Manchester City Council and
Sheffield City Council. The other alternative venues considered
by Patrick Carter either offered no certainty of being delivered
on time or no significantly lesser risk or cost than Picketts
Lock.
10. The Government is grateful to Manchester
and Sheffield City Councils for their assistance in this process.
It was clear that both cities would be suitable for staging the
Championships. However, the costs of delaying the reconfiguration
of the Commonwealth Games Stadium into football mode and the costs
of compensation to Manchester City Council and Manchester City
Football Club would have exceeded the costs of improving the existing
Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield.
11. On 4 October, following further discussions
with Sport England, the Secretary of State met UK Athletics to
advise them of the decision that Lee Valley was not viable as
the venue for the 2005 Championships, to seek their views on whether
they would be prepared to support a switch to Sheffield and for
their assessment of the likely IAAF reaction. UK Athletics agreed
to support the switch and having advised Sheffield City Council
of the decision, the Government and UK Athletics approached the
IAAF by telephone to explain the UK position and seek an urgent
meeting. The IAAF agreed to a meeting the following day at Heathrow
Airport.
12. The Secretary of State and Sport England
also met representatives of the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority
and the London Borough of Enfield on 4 October to explain the
conclusions that had been reached on the National Athletics Stadium
project.
13. Following the conversation with the
IAAF, the Government and Sport England announced the decision
not to proceed with Lee Valley and that a meeting with the IAAF
had been arranged for the following day to discuss the offer of
an alternative venue. Sport England published the discussion of
the Lee Valley proposals in Patrick Carter's report alongside
the Government announcement.
Meeting with the IAAF
14. The Secretary of State and the Minister
for Sport, together with UK Athletics, Sport England and Patrick
Carter, met Lamine Diack and Istvan Gyulai, President and General
Secretary of the IAAF on 5 October. The purpose of the meeting
was to brief the IAAF on the outcome of the Picketts Lock review,
to express the Government's regret that Picketts Lock had not
proved a viable option and to present the IAAF with an alternative
proposal which had three key elements. These elements were that:
— the 2005 World Athletics Championships
should be moved to Sheffield;
— the IAAF bi-annual congress should
be staged in London; and that
— the IAAF might be able to help with
the development of a bursary programme for athletes in developing
countries.
15. At the meeting, the Secretary of State
made clear to the IAAF that the Government still supported the
UK staging the 2005 World Athletics Championships but that in
the light of Patrick Carter's report, it could not guarantee to
deliver a first rate event in London in 2005. Instead, the Secretary
of State wanted the IAAF to consider switching the Championships
to Sheffield, a city which has a good record of staging major
international sports events, an athletics venue—the Don
Valley Stadium—in place, and transport infrastructure in
place which has already demonstrated that it can handle the arrival
and dispersal of 50,000 spectators (well in excess of that which
would attend the Championships) at events held at the stadium.
University accommodation for athletes is also available very close
to the stadium.
16. The Government suggested that the IAAF
biannual congress, which coincides with the World Championships,
could be staged in London. The Government expressed its commitment
to ensure that the same programme of events that had been planned
for the Championships in London would instead be timed to coincide
with the congress.
17. As planned, the Government also raised
with the IAAF whether, as part of the long-term legacy for athletics,
the IAAF would be interested in working with the Government to
develop an international programme, initially in the UK but in
the long-term with other EU partners, to enable athletes in developing
countries to benefit from the extensive facilities in the UK and
other EU nations. This scheme would build on the Prime Minister's
commitment in his speech to the Party Conference to provide more
aid to developing countries.
18. The IAAF responded that the Championships
had been awarded to London and it would require an IAAF Council
meeting to agree to move the Championships to another venue.
Mr Diack was of the view that the Council would
prefer to re-open the bidding for the 2005 Championships rather
than simply agree to the move to Sheffield. However, that would
be for the Council. He asked the UK Government to set out their
position in writing to enable the Council to consider the request
at their Council meeting on 26-27 November.
The Current Position
19. The offer made by the Government remains
on the table and the Secretary of State will be writing shortly
to the IAAF to reiterate the offer. A copy of that letter will
be given to members of the Committee when it is sent. We urge
the IAAF to consider seriously the exceptional circumstances and
to look very carefully at the merits of Sheffield. Should the
IAAF decide at its November Council meeting to re-open the bidding
process, the Government will reach a decision on whether Sheffield
should re-bid for the Championships in close consultation with
UK Athletics and Sport England.
The Future for Lee Valley
20. Both Sport England and the Government
recognise that while Picketts Lock will not now serve as the location
for a National Athletics Centre it is a site which has the potential
to serve both regional and local sports needs. It is likely therefore
that during further discussion between the Lee Valley Regional
Park Authority and Sport England, agreement can be reached on
whether the existing ageing leisure centre can be replaced by
a facility of regional significance. The Government is minded
to invest some of the funds originally earmarked for the National
Athletics' Centre's youth and community facilities for similar
facilities in another development in the Lee Valley.
Conclusion
21. The Government is disappointed that
the National Athletics Centre has not been deliverable and that,
to date, the IAAF have not been willing to consider the merits
of the world class facilities they are being offered in Sheffield.
However, the Government is of the view that it was better to act
decisively now when it was clear that the level of risk to the
Lee Valley project were such that the Government could not guarantee
to the IAAF—even with substantial further injections of
funds—to deliver a world class event.
22. Since the decision to bid for the World
Athletics Championships at Picketts Lock was taken, the project
has faced a number of significant additional hurdles:
— the package of necessary transport
improvements schemes that need to be in place for the 2005 World
Athletics Championships is now much clearer and;
— there is now no guarantee that the
provision of accommodation for athletes near to the stadium can
be ready in time; and
— the budgetary requirements for staging
the Championships have risen significantly in the light of experience
of the Commonwealth Games and Edmonton's staging of the World
Athletics Championships.
23. Any one or even possibly two of these
issues might not have proved fatal to the Lee Valley project.
However, their combination has meant that the degree of risk is
too high for any investment of taxpayers' or Lottery players'
funds and the Government chose to act decisively now to halt the
project. It did so also on the basis of its assessment that resolution
of these important issues was outside the control of local management.
Lessons Learned
24. Following the experiences learned from
the Football Association's bid for the 2006 World Cup, the escalation
in costs of staging next year's Commonwealth Games and the significant
increase in risk and budgetary requirements for the 2005 World
Athletics Championships, the Secretary of State now intends to
commission a review of policy in relation to the bidding for and
staging of the largest international sports events. UK Sport and
the home country sports councils have a good track record in attracting
and staging medium and small scale international sports events
to the UK, but it is clear that a rethink is required on bidding
for the largest events which require significant Government support—regardless
of whether those leading the bids undertake at the start of the
process to underwrite all risk.
25. An aim of the review will be to produce
a clear set of ground rules before bids for large events proceed.
These ground rules would cover the need for:
— identifying and managing risks;
— ensuring deliverability.
26. The review should also identify a way
to ensure that the role and expectation of Government is always
clear at the outset. Any ambiguity will always lead to the Government
being asked to be funder of the last resort and the Secretary
of State is acutely aware that every £1 million spent on
a struggling large project is money not spent on grass roots sport
or other priorities needed to help athletes win medals.
27. The Government therefore intends to
undertake a review that will look closely at the ways that decisions
to bid for the larger world class events are taken as well as
examining the provision for hosting the events themselves. An
announcement on the details of the review which will want to draw
on the reports of the Select Committee including that on the current
enquiry will be made shortly.
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