Jowell And Allen: Every Corner Of The Country To Feel The 2012 Effect
177/05
The whole of the UK can – and will – benefit from London staging the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games.
That is the message from Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell and top businessman Charles Allen, who is heading the important Nations and Regions group at LOCOG, the organising committee for the 2012 Games.
They were speaking as Tessa Jowell's Department for Culture, Media and Sport published the findings of an Olympic Games Impact Study, designed to maximise the benefits the 2012 Games will bring to all parts of the country.
The report predicts that staging the Olympic Games here could lead to a boost of at least £1.9bn to the UK's economy. But Tessa Jowell says that is not good enough.
"We can do much, much, better than that. Look at tourism, for example. Seb Coe and his team did Britain proud in selling our bid to the world and we can do that again, this time marketing our country and its many attractions in an eye-catching way," she said.
The Olympic Games Impact Study, carried out for the DCMS and the London Development Agency by PricewaterhouseCoopers, says staging the Games can produce many benefits, including stimulating vital regeneration in one of the capital's poorest areas, encouraging the creation of new businesses and jobs, boosting participation in sport and speeding up investment in facilities.
And, using a sophisticated survey-based technique, it puts a figure on what the public thinks the 'intangible' benefits from hosting the event are worth to them – features like enhanced national pride, a feelgood factor, motivating children to take up sport and using activity to promote better public health. That figure is £3.2bn, of which almost 80 per cent is attributed to households outside London.
The report does identify the possibility of some economic 'displacement' from the rest of the UK to London – if there are no positive moves by Government and other stakeholders to ensure that benefits are spread across the country.
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Charles Allen, Chief Executive of ITV and the former Chairman of the Commonwealth Games in Manchester in 2002, said:
"We have already been working hard on the challenge of spreading the benefits beyond the capital, for over 18 months, through the Nations and Regions Group.
"During the Bid, the Group played a key role in generating great support throughout the UK, which was a factor in our success in Singapore. As Chair of the Group, I am determined that we mobilise the whole UK to ensure the benefits are shared. We've made an excellent start, which we are committed to continuing."
The report concludes that "there would appear to be significant potential benefits from hosting the Games" but makes clear that they can only be achieved if Government takes action.
"This report is a valuable aid in assessing the scale of the effort we need to put into ensuring that everyone really is a winner from the world's biggest event coming to Britain," said Tessa Jowell.
"It takes as its starting point what would happen if Government and 2012 stakeholders sat on the sidelines and did nothing to spread the benefits from the Games. That's a really useful place to begin – much better than making unrealistic claims from the outset and becoming complacent."
"We know we have got to work to make the Games benefit the entire UK and that is what we have already started doing. This early action is the key to unlocking real benefits for the whole country."
Tessa Jowell announced that her Department would be staging a summit next June to tell businesses outside London how they can bank their own 2012 dividend in the next decade. The tourist industry across the UK is set to be one of the big beneficiaries, while many companies from outside London will be pitching for contracts for work on the Games.
The DCMS has already announced a 2012 tourism charter and by next year will have a comprehensive tourism strategy in place to tie in with the Games coming to London.
Notes to Editors
1. The Olympic Games Impact Study can be accessed here.
2. The PricewaterhouseCoopers report includes research work by Dr Adam Blake of the University of Nottingham and by eftec, a leading UK consultancy specialising in environmental economics.
3. Blake, A. 2005, 'The Economic Impact of the London 2012 Olympics', TTRI Discussion Paper No. 2005/5. Available from www.nottingham.ac.uk/ttri/discussion_papers.htm
4. For further information and electronic copies of the eftec report, go to the 'news' section at http://www.eftec.co.uk/ or e-mail eftec@eftec.co.uk
5. For information on how the Nations and Regions are preparing themselves to maximise the opportunities of the Games in 2012 please visit LOCOG's website at http://www.london2012.com/
Press Enquiries: 020 7211 6052/6277
Out of hours telephone pager no: 07699 751153
Public Enquiries: 020 7211 6200
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