Leaders call for an Up North Olympics to aid regeneration
Credit: Pier de Coubertin @ Wikimedia Commons
11 northern leaders have issued a joint letter to the Culture Secretary, Lisa Nandy, asking the government to “agree in principle” that future Olympic bids should propose northern English cities as the primary hosts of the games.
Some of the 11 signatories who wrote to Nandy under the banner of “The Great North” partnership include Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham and Liverpool mayor, Steve Rotherham.
The letter makes the case that an Olympic games would be a “once-in-a-generation opportunity to accelerate regeneration” in the north of England, “rebalance the [national] economy, and reset international perceptions of England.”
Credit: LBJLibraryNow @ Wikimedia Commons
London mayor, Sadiq Khan, has previously expressed interest in a bid for the capital to host the 2036 or 2040 Olympic games. But if the northern leaders’ proposal is adopted by the government, any Olympic bid would be required to prioritise support work in northern cities and align with northern councils on “legacy objectives.”
The letter echoes the outlook of former London mayor Ken Livingstone, who championed the London 2012 Olympic bid as “the only way to get the billions of pounds out of the government to develop the East End.” While the letter’s mention of “legacy objectives” has renewed the memory of London 2012’s troubled legacy initiatives.
For example, targets for repurposing the Olympic Park as affordable housing were not met and the athlete’s village was sold from public ownership in 2011 to Qatari Diar and Delaney for only half the amount spent building it, losing the British taxpayer £275m.
Olympic Park, East London. Credit: Arne Müseler @ Wikimedia Commons
The Olympic park’s design has been criticised due to a lack of community and pedestrian orientated infrastructure. In 2022, researcher Prof. Juliet Davis, who documented the site before the games, claimed that as well as demolishing community spaces (such as Clays Lane co-operative accommodation and a Ghanaian pentecostal church), the Olympic “regeneration exacerbated the process of decline” in the area.
Despite historic concerns over the 2012 Olympics’ effect on local communities, the letter and signatories’ comments are consistent in highlighting the positives. The letter requires that any Olympic bid should ensure “the long-term benefit of northern communities.” Separately, Steve Rotherham described a northern Olympics as a “once in a lifetime chance to bring the Olympics closer to ordinary communities that have too often felt like they have been left out of the national story.”