Olympic big screen is a non-starter
BIRMINGHAM will not be hosting an Olympic fan zone in the city centre because council bosses could not find anyone to pay for a big screen.
While most other major cities, including Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow, Bristol and even Swansea, Plymouth and Coventry are hosting official public screenings of the Rio sporting spectacular from August 6, Birmingham fans will miss out.
The city council was approached by fan zone organisers who were looking to stage events and put up branding, but not prepared to supply a screen for the live coverage from Brazil.
Labour council deputy leader Ian Ward said: “We did have talks with the organisers and spoke to others about supplying a screen, but we do not have the budget to pay for it.
“I assume these other cities have public screens in place.
“It is a pity that the Government was not able to help cities with funding for Olympic events.”
But opposition Conservative leader Robert Alden described it as a missed opportunity for the city.
“It’s a great shame,” he said, “It is these type of events which bring people into the city centre and who would have bought food and drink, been shopping, visited a restaurant and boosted the economy.
“This is the cost of not having a big screen anymore for these special events.”
It is in stark contrast to 2012 when, as well as hosting the Jamaican and USA athletics training camps, Victoria Square was home to an Olympic festival throughout the London games.
But the big screen, which cost the BBC £365,000 to install in 2007, had to be pulled down after the 2012 games because it did not have full planning permission.
It had been put up in defiance of the square’s historic listed status and without consideration of the noise impact on nearby offices.
A long-running legal battle over the issue brought the total cost of the screen to more than £1 million.
Plans to move the screen to either Eastside City Park or the newly refurbished Centenary Square were dropped.