Joe GallopThe UK government is to invest around £60m of underspend from the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games budget in the West Midlands, in a bid to further the legacy of the event.
The fund, backed by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), the West Midlands Combined Authority and Birmingham City Council, is to be spent on increasing access to sport and culture and drive inward investment and tourism in the West Midlands.
The Commonwealth Games was backed by £778m of public funding which provided the West Midlands with a refurbished Alexander Stadium (cap. 32,000) in Perry Barr and a new aquatics centre in Smethwick.
The investment builds on existing legacy programmes already being rolled out. In partnership with DCMS, Sport England will provide a Birmingham 2022 kit giveaway which will see 16,000 items, including basketballs and bibs gifted to West Midlands community groups.
Birmingham 2022 was the best-selling Commonwealth Games to be held in the UK with more than 1.5m tickets sold, and the most watched Games on the BBC’s digital platforms with 57.1m streams.