Letter: I could scream

Oh dear, not again, there are times when I read The Star letters when I could scream.

Some people’s inability or unwillingness to understand the difference between cost of hosting a sporting event and the building of long-term infrastructure of sporting and cultural facilities, which will not only attract many many more events but are for the enjoyment of Sheffield people.

Remembering that the last sports facility Sheffield had built was the Concord Sports Centre in the early 70s and we were long overdue for modernisation, if only to catch up with other major cities.

Firstly, in reply to Ernest Hooker. I do not need him to give me any facts regarding the tender process or the prices.

Indeed, as chair of the WSG sub buildings committee I opened them and signed them off, almost on a daily basis. I was at every meeting where the decisions were made.

But let me just tell him the history, because initially we were just going to provide facilities needed to host the World Student Games and John Morrell, the director of recreation, provided members with an estimate of £34 million building costs.

That was by using one of our football grounds, Wednesday or United, to hold the opening and closing ceremonies, upgrade our Woodbourn Athletic Stadium to provide more spectator seats, build two 50m swimming pools (Sheffield was only major city without one) including a diving provision and two sports halls attached to schools.

The World Student Games did not require a 13,000-seater Arena with an ice pad, just to hold gymnastics and basketball. It did not require a swimming and leisure complex which included a leisure pool, a major 50m pool that could be divided into three 25m pools with floors that could be raised altering the depths, and a major sports hall with seating and lighting of television quality.

It did not need the Hillsborough Leisure Centre, the Lyceum Theatre or the upgraded Tudor Square.

However, the city policy committee took a decision to invest in three or four flagship facilities that would put Sheffield on the International scene for the next decade and would attract more events and visitors, act as a catalyst for the regeneration of our very depressed and half-derelict city and provide the Sheffield residents with some excellent facilities, something we had lacked for generations.

A building cost was agreed at £147m, which would be paid for over a 25-year period and completed in 2017, but the city decided to refinance the debt on a regular basis in order to raise funds to support our public services.

On the other side of the equation, which the critics never take into account or mention, was the fact that the city sold the Glossop Road Baths, Hillsborough Baths and the Sheaf Valley Baths site.

Now I can understand Mr Hooker or for that matter Stan Taylor not agreeing with that decision, although it was a unanimous decision of council with all-party support, but please do not blame it on a sporting event, the World Student Games, which was used to launch this investment and cost £10.2m and paid for in 1992.

If Mr Hooker wants to know where tourism comes in, it ain’t the snooker which does give us excellent world TV coverage but not the visitors.

Just for his information, according to research by the Hallam University (The Kronos Report) between 1991 and 1997 Sheffield hosted 430 sporting events, including, 16 world championships,15 European, 65 international and 330 national, bringing in over 500,000 extra visitors creating an additional spend of £33m and creating 900 FTE job years.

Finally to both my critics, the ONLY reason Sheffield was awarding the English Institute for Sport was this city’s investment in a sporting infrastructure needed to support the Institute which could not be matched by any other city.

I was chair of the Sport England Yorkshire board at the time and the board unanimously agreed to back Sheffield’s bid, no other city could match it, not even Leeds.

I personally, as chair of the Yorkshire Region, wrote to the Culture Minister Chris Smith and Sports Minister Tony Banks putting Sheffield’s case.

Both came to visit and look at what we had to offer and Chris Smith agreed he had not seen any other to match it. Sheffield was the best.