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London?s bid to host the 2012 Olympics has been billed as a ?once in a lifetime opportunity?. Tim Burley suggests it might lead to a lifetime of regret.

So the New Opportunities Fund and the Community Fund have been merged into one ?Super-funder?. The sector was consulted ? we all aired our concerns and our interests and sat calmly awaiting the creation of a new cash cow with simple grant programmes and more money to fund the back-breaking, thankless work of the voluntary sector. And then the reality of this scandalous scheme became apparent ? in the footnotes of a document on The Big Lottery Fund?s website.

Counting the cost

It seems that once these funding giants are merged, 30?40% of funds will be given to central government designated projects. That suggests to me between £180m and £240m a year. And over the next six years, the Government is planning to extract £1.4bn from the voluntary sector: maybe a billion from The Big Lottery Fund, £50m from the arts (in annual increases denied to the Arts Council) and hundreds of millions from the London Development Agency?s regeneration budget. All this, together with a few pounds a month on everyone?s council tax bills and an inflation busting 10% increase on travel in the capital, and what do you get? Just over £2.5bn ? the sum required to stage a two-week sporting event that the Government has said will cost it nothing.

The Olympics are truly a great thing ? but do they really have to cost so much? In recent decades, how many cities and countries have been bankrupted through their hosting of this most gargantuan of events? Montreal is still projecting repayments for 15 years and the Greeks are wondering if they will ever shift their billions of debt. Compare this with the world?s largest theatre festival, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ? literally thousands of productions in hundreds of venues ? yet funded with less than 0.02% of that budget.

The tourist trap

Some say the Olympics will bring great wealth ? 250,000 tourists coming for 2 weeks. Don?t we normally have that number of tourists in London anyway? Where will all the everyday tourists go ? no doubt they?ll be well away from it all, enjoying leisurely holidays in Italy watching the Olympics on a TV in a bar with a glass of cold refreshing Frascati. And, we are reminded that the Olympics will put us on the map ? like London needs to get on the map? Is Athens now teeming with tourists catching the last flavours of the greatest feat in global event management? I don?t think so. So, if we need to attract overseas tourists how about a £100m global arts festival, or a £200m advertising campaign?

I know I sound bitter about the Olympics ? I wish I didn?t. But I am concerned. A lot of great projects won?t happen; thousands of people doing good work will lose their jobs; hundreds of thousands of people who would have been helped by these projects won?t be helped. And, inevitably the project will run over budget ? and where will the rest of the cash come from? It is too reminiscent of the Dome ? we could all have had our millennial New Year?s Eve costs covered if it weren?t for that great white elephant. In fact, why not host the games there? This would finally make some use of a huge tent we paid over a billion pounds for.

If we don?t have the infrastructure in London, then why host the games? Do we need an Olympic aquatic park and stadium? If we did, wouldn?t we already have them? Isn?t it a bit excessive building these things for a two-week shindig? If anywhere in this country is going to host it shouldn?t it be the North? Tyneside? Some city not busting at the seams, a city in need of a great pool and stadium which already has trains and buses where you don?t feel lucky simply for getting a seat?

As the Olympic inspectors? attention has shifted from London on to the other candidate cities, I can only feel one overriding wish: ?Good Luck Paris!?

e: timb@artscorpinternational.com;
w: http://www.artscorpinternational.com