LEADING athlete Lee McConnell, Scotland's top doctor and an 18-year-old from Glasgow's east end will spearhead a new body ensuring the much-promised legacy of the 2014 Commonwealth Games is delivered to the city.
Details of the Glasgow 2014 Legacy Board will be unveiled in a new report next week that will reveal the progress being made in delivering the event, which takes place in less than three years.
Joining Ms McConnell, Scotland’s chief medical officer Sir Harry Burns and east end athlete and teenage 2014 medal hopeful Andrew Dearie will be Benny Higgins, the chief executive of Tesco Bank, and Vicky Rosin, a senior official at Manchester City Council, which staged the games in 2002.
The inclusion of the 18-year-old is intended to reach out to young people across the region.
The board, which will also include several prominent local politicians, will play a crucial role in scrutinising the work of all partner organisations involved in delivering the council’s legacy plans.
Archie Graham, Glasgow City Council’s lead politician on the Games, said: “We are delighted by the quality of the membership of the Glasgow 2014 Legacy Board.”
According to the new report, more than 1500 school-leavers have started Commonwealth Apprenticeships since the initiative’s launch in 2009, while organisations already awarded contracts will bring in 339 “new entrant” trainees across the Games-related projects and provide 121 work experience places for the long-term unemployed.
Of the £278 million worth of Tier 1 Games-related contracts awarded, £178m have been secured by Glasgow-based companies. Firms from outwith the city to have won major contracts include Fairways Sportsgrounds of Inchinnan, which has the £1m contract for constructing the bowling greens at Kelvingrove, Thomas Johnstone, also from Inchinnan, which has the £3.3m joinery contract for the Velodrome, and Kilmarnock’s Land Engineering, which will landscape the area around the National Indoor Arena and Velodrome.
All of the awards were made through the Commonwealth Games Business Portal.
It has also emerged that by August, Glasgow City Marketing Bureau was reporting an estimated direct economic impact of £23.2m in the city as a result of hosting the Commonwealth Games, comprising of £6.8m worth of confirmed events, additional conferences worth up to £10m and additional air route development projects worth around £5.8m.
Mr Graham added: “Companies from Glasgow and the rest of Scotland have done fantastically well in gaining Games-related contracts.
“There are still many opportunities to tender for these contracts, but organisations who are interested in future business should note that they must register on the business portal. There have been more than 15,500 registrations on the portal so far.
“The report also shows how our community-benefit clauses will mean hundreds of new entrant traineeships and work experience places for the long-term unemployed, and that recent research shows an economic impact of more than £23m already, through travel and events, attracted as a result of the Games.”
Glasgow 2014 Chief Executive David Grevemberg said: “We are really pleased that the Glasgow City Council Legacy Board is now established and we look forward to continue working with the members on the newly- formed board and the council to ensure that the Commonwealth Games can leave a lasting and positive legacy.”
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