Tim Almond

£11m Jobs Boost for Olympics

An £11m package to provide training and jobs ahead of the 2012 Olympics has been announced by London’s mayor.

New sports coaches, cooks and builders needed for the Games are expected to be trained by the 27 projects involved.

Mr Livingstone said: “The 2012 Games is a once in a generation opportunity for London to transform communities across the capital which have suffered from decades of under investment and neglect.”

So you train people up as sports coaches, cooks and builders. The builders can put together the stadia, village etc. The coaches prepare the athletes for the events, and for the few weeks of shots being put, hurdles being jumped and hop, skipping and jumping, lots of tasty meals are cooked.

The problem is, what then? The spike in requirements has gone, and you have oversupply. The work that was created for these cooks, builders and coaches is now gone. So, they end up competing with everyone else for a smaller pot.

This is the whole problem with the games-led regeneration. It’s about the games first, not the regeneration. Government money is being spent on projects to do with the games in the name of regenerating the area. But what will be left will be of far less value if the regeneration had been the objective in the first place. Instead of a velodrome, you get a school. Instead of a village, which might be able to be turned into housing, you could build the housing that people wanted in the first place. The millions spent on training could be spent on the things people want to learn, the things that could help them further themselves in a real way, which training for the Olympics is denying them.

Tags: Politics //