Kerry Lorimer looks at what Glasgow can expect from the Commonwealth Games legacy
Glasgow is a city that, when it comes to legacy, is taking no risks. The history of mega sporting events is characterised by costly extravaganzas that promised more than they delivered; glitzy celebrations of sporting glory that left nothing but trodden-on streamers and a big overdraft in their wake.
The Glasgow Commonwealth Games are a hair over six years away, but work on the all-important legacy is well under way. One man whose reputation depends on that legacy is Steven Purcell, leader of Glasgow City Council, who says Glasgow has learned from the experiences of previous Games.
“The most important lesson is to plan early,” he says. “Other cities have perhaps after winning the right to host the Games sat back for a wee while.” Glasgow, on the other hand, has kept the momentum up ever since the historic decision was made in Sri Lanka last November. “It would be criminal if someone like me was not working my socks off to ensure Glaswegians benefit from the Games coming to the city,” he says.
Indeed, Purcell has made it a mission ever since to eradicate any hint of complacency among those involved in delivering the Games and its legacy. “Every time I address business people or key people in the public sector that are working specifically on the Commonwealth Games, I impress on them all the time the need to keep an eye on the ball,” he says.
The commitment to a legacy that outlives the Games is shared by Lord Smith, chairman of Glasgow 2014. His job is to deliver the Games, not the legacy, but there is no doubt in his mind that the two go hand in hand. “As a human being and a Scot and Glaswegian I want to see a lasting legacy from the Games,” he says. “If we clear up the bunting and there’s no legacy, it will have been a waste of time.”
The most important single inheritance from the Games, says Smith, will be increased confidence as a result of a successful event and a creditable haul of medals for Scottish athletes. “Nowhere in my contract does it say Scotland must win medals, but…if we don’t win medals there will be a pretty poor feeling about the Games,” he says.
“If the federation and athletes and people of Glasgow and Scotland are all saying ‘wow’, and we’re all puffing our wee chests out and there’s a good feeling about it then that’ll be me happy,” he says.
For Smith, the best example of the transformative power of a sporting event is Barcelona, which harnessed the Olympics in 1992 to accelerate the social and economic regeneration of the city. “If you visit Barcelona, Barcelona sparkles, there is a terrific wellbeing, there is no question the urban renewal and increased confidence is there,” he says.
The Scottish Government, for its part, is at pains to ensure the legacy of the Games is maximised not just for Glasgow but for Scotland as a whole.
“One of the most important things we are trying to do is ensure there is a legacy right across the country, and the legacy isn’t just constrained to the Glasgow area,” says Sports Minister Stewart Maxwell.
“Right across the country, people were watching [Glasgow awarded the Games] on November 9, and our fundamental aim is to make sure that excitement is multiplied come 2014, and that we not only produce the best Games the Commonwealth has ever seen, but that Scotland benefits in years to come from the legacy.”
Aberdeen, for example, is to gain a new 50m swimming pool which will benefit local swimmers and athletes as well as providing a boost to the north-east economy. Businesses all over Scotland will also be encouraged to bid for contracts at the Games, says Maxwell.
The Scottish Government has established a legacy board, chaired by a senior civil servant, on which sport, culture, local government and other stakeholders are represented. It has also held a written consultation to canvass opinion on the legacy of the Games, and is now holding public meetings around the country at which people are invited to share ideas on how their areas should benefit.
Maxwell stresses the necessity of early planning to avoid the problems experienced by previous host cities. “It’s critical, because if we don’t plan it properly there is always the danger we will end up in the position some others have [found themselves in] where they gained new facilities but not much else,” he says.
Scotland also differs from previous hosts in its decision to build new facilities only where these are needed to fill gaps in the existing sporting infrastructure. Maxwell believes that will help Glasgow sidestep the “trap of building lots of shiny new facilities which, post the Games, are in the wrong place or too large or the wrong kind of thing for ordinary people to use on a regular basis”.
It is also clear from past Games that notoriously difficult parts of the legacy, such as increasing sports participation, will not happen automatically and require hard work now. “In many of the previous Games, there was the expectation that just by having the event itself people would take up sport and physical activity, [which] has been a false hope,” he says. 
The Scottish Government is pinning hopes on the Games to further its ambitions to make Scotland healthier, wealthier and more successful. “We want to see increased [sports] participation, Scotland’s best ever results in terms of medals, new facilities not just in Glasgow but in other parts of the country, and increased economic opportunities for many of the people who are at the moment excluded,” says Maxwell.
However, he could run into problems if money set aside for the Commonwealth legacy is perceived to be funding projects to which the Government is already committed. The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations has said it will be keeping an eye out for such raids, which it fears will leave good causes out of pocket.
“Our concerns are based on experience,” says Lucy McTernan, deputy chief executive of SCVO. “When the Olympics came along, the first port of call when they realised they weren’t getting the private sector investment they’d expected was the Lottery. We wanted to make sure that didn’t happen.”
McTernan also believes the direction of legacy funding should be shaped by communities themselves, instead of being imposed from above, to maximise the potential of long-lasting change. “It should be bottom up, and improve people’s quality of life,” she says.
In the meantime, Purcell’s eye is firmly on using the Games to narrow Glasgow’s serious health and economic inequalities. Two of the council’s priorities will be increased sporting participation and improved employment and skills opportunities across the city.
Until 2014, Glasgow will be channelling £1m into a sports development fund aimed at boosting amateur clubs in the city. On employment, it has also pledged a modern apprenticeship for all school-leavers in the city who want one, with 2,000 youngsters expected to benefit from training in skills such as plumbing and bricklaying on the back of the Games-related construction work. It will be, says Purcell, the biggest apprentice recruitment drive since World War Two.
The scheme has drawn plaudits from the business community, and Purcell is confident it will be just as popular with young people: City Building, the council-owned company which will be offering most of the apprenticeships, last year received almost 3,000 applications for fewer than 100 places.
“There is huge demand out there for opportunities to learn that trade,” he says. The important thing is that young people are offered a choice. “When I was at school, the equivalent was the YTS and you didn’t get much choice – there were 100 people leaving school and 100 options the careers adviser tried to fit you into,” he says.
Not all opportunities arising from the Games will be paid: the smooth running of the event will depend on an army of volunteers. Purcell is clear that recruitment of volunteers should not focus solely on 2014, but on strengthening civic engagement within the city in the run-up to the Games. “It’s very important not to get tunnel vision about recruitment of volunteers for the Games,” he says. “It’s very often in parts of Glasgow with big social challenges the backbone is the people who give up their time to run activities and helping clean the place up.”
Purcell is also counting on Glasgow’s new and improved facilities to attract prestigious events to the city well beyond the Games. “We’re making sure the sporting facilities become popular and well-used venues not just by local communities and sports clubs but by attracting more events,” he says. “We have to have a clear plan in terms of what we intend to see coming to Glasgow post 2014.”
So how will Glasgow measure the success of its legacy, something that is notoriously difficult to assess? Purcell points to employment rates, the destinations of school leavers. But, he says, the real test goes beyond official statistics. “The single biggest measurement will be the verdict of the people of Glasgow and how they feel after the Games have come and gone,” he says. “It will be judged in Glasgow on whether the people of Glasgow can see a tangible benefit to the city and themselves.”
If they do, the Games will without doubt have been the success that everyone in Glasgow – and Scotland – wants to see.
No one has commented on this article.
Related news items:
|
Holyrood magazine is the fortnightly insiders guide to understanding the complexity of Scottish politics and policy developments and is widely regarded as being the leading publication for political news and information in Scotland.
