Written evidence submitted by the Rt Hon
Tessa Jowell MP, Minister for the Olympics
What set London apart when we bid for the 2012
Olympic and Paralympic Games was the scale of our legacy ambition.
We welcome this opportunity to set out in the clearest terms our
core legacy promises and how achievement against these will be
judged.
We made two pledges: first that the Olympics
would change a generation of young people through sport and second
that they would transform East London. This submission sets out
how we are delivering against these pledges.
Since then, other legacy ambitions have arisen
from our priority commitments. We want London 2012 to be the most
sustainable, environmentally friendly games ever. We want to use
the games to provide a shot in the arm for the economy, developing
skills and supporting business up and down the country. We want
to deliver a social and cultural legacy that provides young people
across the UK with opportunities to try new activities and get
involved in their communities, and showcases the best of Britain
to the world. And we want to use the 2012 Games to transform people's
perceptions of disabled people.
All of these ambitions are important and are
evident in our work. But it is against these two core promises
that we must be judged.
1. TRANSFORMING
A GENERATION
THROUGH SPORT
We can only fulfil this commitment by addressing
the following historic challenges:
— young people in state schools have had
too little sport as part of their daily life and have had too
little opportunity to compete;
— sport facilities for young people needed
to be improved; and
— there has always been a significant drop
off in participation at 16, when sport is no longer part of the
school curriculum.
Meeting these challenges requires change at
every level, in sports administration through to the development
of world-class support for our elite athletes.
The sports legacy of the 2012 Games will be
a world-class sports system. More first-class sporting facilities;
more clubs and coaches; more people of all ages playing sport;
and sustained elite success.
In practice this means that by 2013:
— one million more adults doing sport as
part of two million more being physically active;
— all 5-16 year olds in England having
the opportunity of five hours of PE and sport a week;
— an excellent community sport system and
club structure; and
— Team GB in the top four at the London
Olympics and Paralympics GB second in the medal table, winning
more medals in more sports compared to Beijing.
The scale of our task should not be underestimated.
Delivering change on this scale would be a unique achievement
for an Olympic host nation.
Exchequer funding for sport has doubled since
we won the Games in 2005—from £313 million in the three
years before compared to £580 million in the three years
after.
In 2003 the Government started a programme of
transformation of school sport that will take a decade to fully
achieve. By 2008, 90% of children were taking part in two hours
of PE and school sport a week, an increase from an estimated 25%
in 2002. Now, over half are taking part in three hours a week.
Addressing the millions of 16 year olds who
simply stop doing sport when they leave school requires radical
thinking. Every 16- to 19-year-old is now being offered three
hours of sport a week, in schools, colleges and community settings
and the challenge is convert this into high take-up by 2013.
A new approach to community sport is required.
The Government has made free swimming available to 20 million
people aged 16 and under or 60 and over, created a new role for
sports governing bodies, making them partners in driving up sports
participation, and has invested £0.5 billion of public money
to fuel that drive.
Finally, meeting our ambition requires an overhaul
of elite sport. The Government has refocused UK Sport as a body
dedicated solely to helping UK athletes win medals.
We have made a lot of progress. But a world-class
sporting system cannot be built overnight. The effect of the near
half a billion pounds of investment in community and school sport
will not be truly known until after the games and that will be
the time to judge success.
These levels of funding would just not have
happened without the Olympics as the catalyst. Local authorities
and the National Lottery are also investing huge amounts of money
in sports facilities, coaches and opportunities for people to
play more sport, as well as supporting our elite athletes
The results in Beijing, where Team GB came fourth
in the Olympic medal table and second in the Paralympics is evidence
of our success. It was unforgettable and turned the eyes of the
world on Great Britain.
At community level we are also seeing results.
About 600,000 more people are now doing sport since 2006, and
there were 10.4 million free swims in the first six months of
the free swimming scheme.
2. REGENERATION
OF EAST
LONDON
The five boroughs of Hackney, Newham, Tower
Hamlets, Waltham Forest and Greenwich include the three most deprived
authorities in the country. A famously diverse population, three
times the size of Manchester, twice the size of Glasgow, and half
again as big as Birmingham, with high unemployment, and levels
of health, educational attainment, and skill well below those
experienced by the rest of London.
Regeneration of the heart of East London has
long been planned, but the Olympics is helping to accelerate it
in a way nothing else can.
The heart of these boroughs will be almost unrecognisable
once the games are gone. The Olympic site, once a remote low grade
industrial area, will be transformed into a new water city, which
will play an increasing part in London's future
Across the 2.5 kilometre square site, 250 buildings
have been demolished, tunnels dug to underground two 6km stretches
of powerlines and other utilities improved and upgraded, whilst
some 1.5 cubic metres of contaminated soil has been excavated
and cleaned. This has set the foundations for us to begin to release
the huge potential value from the regeneration of the site and
its surroundings and provide a top quality waterside environment
offering London a unique development asset.
There will be 2,800 new homes in the Olympic
Village, half of which will be affordable, and up to 10,000 more
developed over time on the rest of the site.
There will be 8-10,000 new job opportunities
in future business development on the site, on top of an estimated
18,000 new jobs associated with Stratford City.
By 2012 over 350 apprentices will have worked
on the Olympic park. These people will have learnt new skills
that can be used on other major construction projects like Crossrail.
A legacy for London, a legacy for the economy.
Because of the Olympics, brand new transport
links are making Stratford one of the best connected stations
in London, less than two hours from Paris, with further new fast
links to the City, West End and Heathrow to follow from Crossrail.
And they have accelerated local improvements, including the East
London Line extension, which provides Hackney with its very first
tube service. The capacity of Stratford Regional Station will
be doubled, there is an £80m upgrade of DLR rolling stock
and stations underway, and over £300 million is being spent
on increasing the capacity of the North London line.
There will be new places to take part in sport.
Five world class venues: the Olympic Stadium, the aquatics centre;
velopark; Eton Manor (which will provide facilities for hockey,
tennis and five a side football) and a multi-use sports hall.
All serving an area with some of the lowest sports participation
rates in the country.
There will be new community facilities, including
an education campus (Chobham Academy, comprising nursery, primary
and secondary schools with 1,800 places for children aged 3-19
years old); and a polyclinic health centre, a one-stop primary
health care centre.
There will be new parks. Work is already underway
to create around 250 acres of parklands, on former industrial
land, that will provide a colourful and festival atmosphere for
London 2012 and afterwards become the largest new urban park in
the UK for over 100 years.
This investment will help to unlock the large
scale private investment essential to the regeneration of wider
east London. For example it has helped to underpin the early development
of the new Stratford City retail centre, where £1.45 billion
investment will create 18,000 jobs in the long term, and which,
with the arrival of the likes of Marks and Spencer, John Lewis
and Waitrose, will fundamentally alter the quality of shopping
which is on offer in the sub region. And it provides a positive
image of quality sustainability and success on which to rebuild
the commercial potential of east London.
To deliver our vision for the Olympic site,
the Government and Greater London Assembly jointly established
the Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC) in May 2009. This dedicated
company enables London—unlike most Olympic cities in the
past—to start to prepare, organise and invest in the long
term development and use of the site three years in advance of
the event itself.
The Company will be responsible for overseeing
the management arrangements for the Park and its sporting and
non-sporting facilities after the Games. It will also work to
secure the long term development of the Olympic Park as a high
quality sustainable mixed community that provides lasting national
and local sporting, cultural, educational and leisure benefit.
Between now and 2012, the Company will work jointly with the Olympic
Delivery Authority, LOCOG and other partners on detailed legacy
plans for the venues and the management and maintenance of the
Park, and will start to market the Park to investors. These will
be core elements of the Company's first corporate plan to be published
later this year.
Today, the Olympics are providing a boost to
the UK economy, helping it through the economic downturn. Companies
from across the country are supplying ODA contractors. Over 1,000
companies have already won £5bn of work supplying the ODA,
98% of which are UK-based, 46% are outside London and 14% are
based in one of the five host boroughs.
The CompeteFor brokerage system gives businesses
across the country access to contracts in the London 2012 supply
chains and signposts them to business support, such as Business
Links, to ensure they are fit to supply not just London 2012,
but other agencies responsible for the wider £150 billion
annual public procurement spend. Over 100,000 companies are registered
on CompeteFor, of which 35,000 have received business support.
We welcome this opportunity to define in the
clearest terms the legacy promise and how our achievement will
be judged. With these two core objectives we are showing legacy
is at the heart of our ambitions for the 2012 Games.
January 2010
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