Leader: 2022 Games will not bankrupt Second City

THE leader of Birmingham City Council has hit back at claims that it could go bankrupt as a result of the Commonwealth Games, adding that the city “is going to host a fantastic” event.

Last month a report in The Times suggested the Commonwealth Games “could bankrupt Birmingham”, with the event reportedly having an £84 million hole in its budget.

This, coupled with the fact that the city council has used £117 million of emergency reserves in just two years to keep going, is causing concern for many.

However, speaking at a Conservative Party Conference fringe event on the Commonwealth Games this week, city council leader Ian Ward (Lab) was defiant.

While he acknowledged the council’s ongoing difficulties, he suggested these were not too dissimilar to those facing other areas of the country.

“Let me be clear,” he said. “Birmingham will not be bankrupt either before or as a result of hosting the Commonwealth Games.

“We are very much looking forward to hosting the Commonwealth Games. We have our financial challenges, but so do other cities up and down length and breadth of the country.

“I think one of the differences we have is because we have a government improvement panel sitting over us, a lot of those difficulties are more public than they are for other cities. But we are not going to run out of money, or go bankrupt.”

Cllr Ward did acknowledge that, even with all of these cash injections, there was still a shortfall in the amount the city council needed to raise.

However, he said that a number of possibilities are being considered in order to raise the money.

“One is the possibility of an airport landing tax,” he said.

“This is the possibility that everybody might pay a small sum, perhaps a pound, when they go through Birmingham airport. Birmingham airport currently has 13 million people going through it each and every year, so that would raise a substantial sum of money.

“The other option that we’re looking at is a hotel bed tax. Now neither of these things can be done without us having a conversation with government, and government legislation.

“And the mayor has been very, very helpful in trying to open doors for us to have that conversation with government.” the