Former Sports Minister Richard Caborn has admitted that the performance of the sports element of the Olympic legacy is “disappointing”. London’s Olympic bid had promised to “inspire a generation” to get active. However, figures show that the number playing sport or taking another form of exercise at least once a week has fallen since the Games were held. The number of people reaching or exceeding the target is 15.8 million, which is a drop of only 0.4% – but it’s still a target going in the wrong direction.
Sport England, which collected the data did its best by pointing out that participating has risen steeply since 2005. Worryingly for London – the city which was the actual host of the Olympics and assembled the bid, with its legacy pledges, in the first place – it is ethnic minority (a drop of 1.4%) and least well off sections of the community (a drop of 2.9%) where the decline has been highest. Oxford, the affluent area where Prime Minister David Cameron has his seat, actually saw an increase in sporting activity since the Olympics.
Commenting on the decline in her own area (Yorkshire and Humberside, which had the biggest overall decline), the Yorkshire Sport Foundation’s Helen Marney speculated that there were many causes for the drop, but two key factors were what people could afford and whether they had local facilities. “A lot of the reasons why people don’t get into sport come down to the individual themselves. Do they have the time, money and the facilities nearby?” Sport England also pointed out that Council spending on local sports has fallen by £389 million (27%) over the last five years.
The figures can only leave Londoners wondering what it is that we paid for. They show that this year 8,700 fewer people play sport or take exercise than did in the Olympic year itself – a poor return on the £8.77 billion investment necessary to stage the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Cllr Oliur Rahman, Leader of Tower Hamlets Independent Group, said: “It is sad to see that the number of people participating in sports at a grassroots level has begun to fall. This is not the Olympic legacy we were hoping for – or that we were promised. With John Biggs creating uncertainty over the future of our youth clubs and other community centres, it’s going to be difficult to keep our young people healthy.”
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