Olympics £2 billion target on track
This article reminds us of the scale of the Olympics –It explains “London 2012 organisers are on target to avoid any bail-out by the taxpayer for the running of next year’s Olympics and Paralympics, according to the organising committee’s annual report. Organisers are ahead of schedule in generating a revenue target of £2billion, says the report, and today surpassed the upper mark they had set of raising £700million from domestic sponsors.”
I know there are some significant broader benefits for the economy of the UK and that the massive impact the economic development of London has on the broader rural economy of the southern half of England all make the Olympic effort worthwhile and I am pleased that its earning targets are on track (sorry about the pun!). I don’t personally feel however that the economic outcomes of the games have reached as widely into rural England as we were led to believe and that may be because some of the effects will only come when the games are actually in train.
I wonder however if the lottery and tax payer contributions used to support this huge project are netted off from these “ripple out” effect for rural communities, if overall rural England is not somewhat worse off than if we had not had the games at all. Just a thought – and please don’t think I am being negative about the broader cultural, health and tourism impacts the games may generate