Speech by Tessa Jowell at the Legacy Lives conference
30 January 2007
I’m delighted to have the opportunity to speak today at the first international conference to focus on legacy planning for major sporting events.
Many of you have travelled great distances to be here at this conference today. We value this enormously because what all of us who are involved in 2012 here in London know is how much we have to learn from the experience of those of you who have already hosted Olympic Games or mega global sporting events, and also how much we have to learn and share with those of you who have that in prospect.
Mike [Lee] is absolutely right. I don’t think that in 35 years of public life there is anything that I have enjoyed as much, and felt quite so passionate about, as my role as being part of a team to develop the Games for London.
I think that in so many ways it is a metaphor for everything that I believe politically and for the values that are held by so many of the British people. It is something which has become absolutely fundamental to how we think and what we do.
Now, today we’re focusing on legacy. It has in a sense become the buzzword and I think therefore it should be regarded with a degree of suspicion by planners and those who execute major events because bidders all have their own vision of what legacy actually means and it runs the risk of being one of those terms that means what you want it to say in the absence of other definitions.
Over the past century there are many examples of sporting events that have had a transformational effect both on the cities in which they’ve been held and on the countries that have hosted them.
Sydney, with the 2000 games, wanted to raise the “brand awareness” of Australia and make the city and the country a major tourist destination - they succeeded.
In Manchester in 2002 with the Commonwealth Games, we achieved visible proof that hosting a major sporting event can leave an economic and a social legacy – some 20% of the volunteers that were such a major part of the success of the Commonwealth Games in Manchester carried on volunteering in their local communities after the Games.
Incidentally, another very important part of Manchester’s legacy was the way in which it gave us the confidence to judge that we could actually bid to host the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games.
Beijing – and it’s been my great privilege and pleasure to have a number of meetings with Liu Qi and other members of BOCOG – I know is focused on their Games bringing the country closer to the international community, opening China to the rest of the world and enabling us to understand more directly China’s unique and global potential - we wish them all the very best in achieving everything that they hope for.
Recently, I, with the Olympic chiefs, visited Barcelona to see how the 92 Olympics formed part of a huge and successful regeneration strategy, which continues even today.
That’s the most extraordinary thing, that the momentum that the Olympics created for Barcelona still runs in Barcelona and still provides a justification for the continuing transformation of what has become one of Europe’s truly great modern cities.
The lessons from Barcelona, were very clearly spelt out to me by the city’s Mayor.
He said aim high and be ambitious. So we take both those messages very firmly to heart.
He also said have a very clear focus on how you’re going to achieve it because if you allow distractions then your central aim, and the realisation of your ambition, will be weakened.
So, we have listened to that too and we have a very clear vision.
Yes, London 2012 will provide a world class sporting festival for competitors and audience alike.
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Yes, it will provide a platform for our elite athletes and Paralympic athletes to compete against the very best in the world,
and yes, it will showcase our country as the outward looking, confident and inclusive country that we know it to be and makes us so proud to be British.
But our vision is actually much more even than that. For me, the great legacy of London 2012 will be the scale of social transformation.
Hard legacy – the buildings, the new roads and homes – of course, they will happen – the wonderful new sporting legacy that will serve particularly the five communities in the Olympic boroughs.
But in a way that’s how host cities were judged in the last century.
Countries devastated by World Wars needed to rebuild their cities as a mark of progress.
In the 21st century, we look much more to what is described as soft legacy – the jobs, the sporting opportunities, the skills, the sheer scale of national pride and shared memories that will bind us together as a nation throughout the lifetime of everybody who has been part of it. That is the great prize.
So in London - where the overriding legacy ambition is regenerating the East End - it’s also whole scale transformation of the Lower Lea Valley.
And those of you who perhaps will have time in your visit to London to go out and visit the Olympic Park and the area surrounding the Park will see the scale of our vision and the scale of challenge that we face.
But that’s why London bid to host the 2012 Games – because we have a Lower Lea Valley and an area around Stratford, we have 5 Olympic boroughs, in desperate need of regeneration.
Where investment in the Lower Lee Valley will be new homes, roads and bridges, it is also running in parallel with the soft legacy of skills, education and sporting opportunities.
Buildings alone do not make a legacy. And this is another lesson from Barcelona. It’s the people that make the legacy and give it life.
But because the so-called ‘soft’ legacy is actually harder to achieve, we must begin with a much closer conversation with the public than project planners and construction experts might otherwise expect.
Although a Games based in the Lower Lea Valley is a unique opportunity to change lives in East London, I am clear that London 2012 has the power – I know it has the power - to inspire young people right across the UK – whether they live in Cornwall, Caithness or in Coventry .
So, for the past year, our legacy planning has been devolved through what we call our 2012 Nations and Regions Group chaired with great conviction by Charles Allen.
This has brought together partners from right across the UK to identify their legacy ambitions.
All of the regional plans have identified the engagement of young people – through sport, culture or volunteering – as a key legacy to focus on.
In Scotland, the Scottish Executive already has in place its Active Schools programme which aims to get young people more active through sport and physical activity and to promote healthy lifestyles.
They firmly believe that the 2012 Games in London will be a powerful catalyst to help deliver these key aims as well as a way of bringing communities together, celebrating and showcasing a modern Scotland to the hundreds of thousands of visitors that we hope will come in the aftermath of the Games.
At the other end of the country, the South West Region’s legacy vision is a generation of young people whose lives are changed by 2012 – inspired by the power of the Olympic ethos to be the very best that they can.
To make the most of the opportunity, the Region has set targets to improve its network of sports clubs, expand its network of young leaders and sports ambassadors and to extend its schools programme.
And it is making young people central in formulating, developing and delivering the cultural programme.
Across the UK, a simple aim – participation, people taking part at all different levels – is the core of our legacy ambition.
Too often, we hear fears that younger people are growing disconnected from their wider society.
That rising obesity and inactivity are threatening the health of our children.
That a lack of communication between the generations is harming the fabric of our local communities.
But I believe that young people are as keen as ever to engage with their peers and their communities.
Just two years ago, nearly half of all 16 to 24 year olds in England volunteered formally at least once - that’s 2.8 million people – and 76% volunteered informally.
But they lack face to face connection and opportunities.
Using the gold dust of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games could be the way to inspire so many young people to change their lives, to increase their involvement in sport and arts, volunteering and other community engagement.
To build healthier communities as a result.
This is not a new idea. But it’s an idea which has never been driven with the focus and passion that 2012 creates for us.
Studies show that children who participate in sport are more likely to stay on in school, to have higher self-esteem and self-respect, and feel socially included.
I say to all my colleagues who may sometimes feel a bit downhearted about the daily grind to go to one of our Specialist Sports Colleges where the ambition and the enthusiasm of young people bounces off the walls, where underachievement is turned into pride instead.
It’s no wonder that the last figures I saw showed that our Sporting Colleges have the fastest improving rate of academic achievement of any of our specialist schools.
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Because sport is a way of getting kids into school; getting to school early when otherwise they may wander in late; a way of getting them not to wander around and make trouble in the local neighbourhood at lunchtime; and also then to have the opportunity to compete in school teams and individual competition after school. Sport is a way to build a different way of life for young people.
I have seen that first hand when I visit schools and talk to young people up and down the country.
And I want to say just one thing which is that I think that there’s an understanding among Olympic cities, past, present and future, that it can be very tough dealing with rightly inquisitive, and sometimes vituperative and demanding, media and we get used to the headlines – that’s everything’s going wrong, it’s all out of control.
And then suddenly there’s the great conversion about 6 weeks before the Games and everybody says, “My goodness me, this is fabulous. We said so all along”.
So we all know that that’s part of the experience of being centrally involved in the Olympics.
That’s why, as an antidote to that, engaging and staying close to the ambition of communities and the ambition of young people is so important.
And I tell you whenever I go to schools these days I always say to young people, so who’s excited about the Olympics, and every single hand in the classroom will go up. And then I say, so are you going to be part of the Olympics and every single hand goes up. And then I say, so are you going to compete in the Olympics and about half the hands go up. And then I say, so who’s going to win medals for their country in the Olympics, and about a third of the hands go up.
Now, on that calculation, China watch out! We have about 3 million medal winners raring to go in the classrooms of our country and they will be all ready in time for 2012.
So, that is what the Olympics is about. And we should never ever forget that we are essentially the guardians of that ambition for our young people.
If you’d said to me 10 years ago you know what is going to be your driving passion in ten years time, it’s going to be the Olympic Games, well that’s why - because it gives us this unique opportunity to transform the lives and expectations of a generation of young people.
So for all those reasons sport for young people offers that great new opportunity. We are taking steps in all the right directions to do that.
We have built over the last 5 years, from a very low base. Sport had fallen out of the school curriculum and had fallen out of the lives of three quarters of children at state schools rather than children in independent schools. But now, after 5 years of building sporting opportunity, giving it priority, building new facilities, putting properly trained PE teachers into schools and coaching, 80% of school age children in this country are spending at least 2 hours a week on PE of high quality and school sport.
We want to use 2012 as a horizon to push our ambitions even higher.
Our Step into Sport programme is enabling young people to develop leadership through sport and to get involved in volunteering.
6,000 young people volunteering in their communities as result of this programme and over 16,000 this year involved in planning and running more than 1,800 festivals of sport right across the country.
We also have got more than 800 recognised ‘Young sporting Ambassadors’ - outstanding young people in schools across the country who are helping to spread our Olympic message to their communities and their peers.
Inspired by winning the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, we have launched the UK School Games with the aim of changing the way people – both young and old - think about sport and competition for young people.
The first Games in Glasgow last year were an amazing success - over 1000 young people took part.
Records were broken. Medals won and lost.
Young people triumphed. Young people were disappointed. But each one of them grew and was changed by the experience of taking part.
And cities around the UK saw how successful the School Games were and stepped up to say that we want to host them next year.
We now have 12 cities bidding to host the Games from 2008 - 2011.
This year, the competition will take place in a great city in the West Midlands - Coventry - and more youngsters will compete.
More sports will be added. And young people – both able bodied and those with a disability - will feel the power of competition and the power of sport.
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From a single event this year, we expect the UK School Games to touch many thousands of children and their families in the years ahead.
So - with one event - we inspire children to take part - and we fuel a desire in cities right across this nation to live the Olympic and Paralympic dream.
That is the soft legacy. That is what I mean by social transformation.
And we are working with LOCOG and the Nations and Regions to look at what more we can do to harness the power of the Games to achieve a step change in youth, community, sport and wider cultural engagement.
We are looking at what incentives are needed for individuals and organisations to get involved.
Part of this discussion is about branding. This is a sensitive issue. We all recognise that. I was responsible for the legislation that was taken through to protect the intellectual property of the Olympic movement. It’s important in order that the value of sponsorship is retained.
But LOCOG also knows that allowing not-for-profit organisations to have some use of the branding that could associate them with the common aim and common ambitions are also important to build in this sense of ownership of the Olympics in communities right across the country, building its transformational legacy.
As I said at the outset – it’s people that make a legacy.
So the message I want to leave you this morning with is a very simple one.
The UK’s legacy ambition is big and bold – we want to use the Games to regenerate one of the poorest areas of Europe and encourage a whole generation of young people to get active in their communities.
Neither the Government – nor the UK Olympic family – can do this on its own.
The real shift will come from the inspiration that is understood and in the wave of behavioural change.
And it will take all the UK partners working together to achieve that.
That’s my priority for our Games.
It is a challenge I am absolutely confident the whole of the UK will rise to - demonstrating, perhaps for the first time ever, that the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games can be used to leave a lasting social legacy, a legacy of greater participation in sport and community life than our country has ever seen before.
An active generation of young people. We’ll settle for nothing less.
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