Hackney Council makes £27k Olympics tickets bid
Young Hackney athletes with Michael Johnson in the Olympic Stadium. Photograph: Hackney Council
Hackney council is to spend an estimated £27,000 of tax-payers money on tickets to the 2012 Olympic Games amid concern about the cost to the tax-payer. According to the latest figures available, the council has applied for 200 tickets – more than any other London borough – to be given to young people who have made significant achievements in sport.
LOCOG (the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games) has offered each London borough the opportunity to purchase 100 tickets, with the option of asking for more.
Information gathered by London assembly Liberal Democrat member Dee Doocey suggests that Hackney is spending far more than most boroughs on the 2012 Games. Doocey contacted all the boroughs and asked how many tickets they were seeking. Hackney was the only borough that indicated they planned to buy extra tickets.
At least 13 local authorities, including Barking and Dagenham, have declined the offer altogether. Redbridge councillors came to an all-party agreement not to purchase tickets due to the financial squeeze. Newham Council will be buying tickets with money received through letting sporting facilities for Olympic training, whilst Tower Hamlets is funding their tickets out of the proceeds of crime enforcement. Southwark and Islington have found private sponsors to pay for the tickets that they are purchasing.
A Hackney council spokesperson said: “These tickets will be paid from money agreed in 2005 when it was announced that London had won the bid, to encourage our young people to become involved with the Games as part of our community engagement programme. We feel that investing in this way in our younger aspiring athletes will have a positive impact and will encourage involvement in the Games throughout the borough, not just among those who will receive the tickets.”