This issue of Municipal Engineer started life with the working title ‘major sporting events’. As it developed it became clear that an issue that ‘merely’ dealt with the planning and delivery of a major sporting event would be insufficient for the needs of those who are engaged in this type of activity.
While the major sporting event is, by definition, the main focus of all delivery agencies, other issues quickly crowd the agenda: what other outcomes could be achieved? What other purposes considered? What is the legacy for the future? It would be perverse to invest vast sums, build magnificent stadia, and draw athletes and spectators from around the globe if the entire result is simply a week of high profile media interest and then nothing except for a wasteland of facilities being left to rot.
Governments, funders, spectators and athletes all expect more. It is not just an issue of achieving good value for money and ensuring that an iconic structure is created for the stadia. As Bill Shankly said when asked the question ‘football is more important than life and death to you’: ‘Listen, it's more important than that’. The same is true for any major sporting event; it is more important than that.
For any stadia to have meaning it must address not only the needs of the event but be an investment for the future. To turn the sustainability catchphrase on its head, this is about ‘providing for the needs of tomorrow without compromising the needs of today’.
The ‘major sporting events: lessons and legacies’ section has three briefing articles and three full papers. The opening briefing by Solly compares the ways in which Melbourne, Australia, and Manchester, UK, each approached bidding for a variety of events. Melbourne saw its key outcome in becoming a major tourist destination by hosting a variety of events in order to raise its profile with both the domestic and international tourist. Manchester on the other hand saw its key outcome as the opportunity to regenerate and redevelop the city on the back of major events.
Gooch then details how the London 2012 Olympics are seen as ‘a public transport games’ or in Sebastion Coe's words ‘Athletes are here to compete not to commute’.
The final briefing by Parker outlines the broad range of issues that were addressed in the Wimbledon tennis championships ranging from traffic planning, through street cleansing to the logistics of catering for half a million hungry visitors.
The papers follow a similar pattern. In the first, Taylor looks at Olympic events from 1976 onwards and notes that it was only in 2002 that the issue of legacy became a formal part of the International Olympic Committee vocabulary. Examples of the economic failure of the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games and the over-supply of stadia for the 2002 football World Cup in Korea are compared to the specific legacy plans that were developed for the 2007 cricket World Cup and 2012 Olympics.
The next two papers return to different aspects of the transportation issue for any major event. Mounsey details how the 2006 Commonwealth Games crowd movements were modelled. Useful background data is quoted on the ‘free-flow’ speed of pedestrians moving around venues. Then Hejazi discusses the plans created for traffic at the PGA World Golf Championships in 2006. This paper describes the measures undertaken by several local and national authorities to ensure that sufficient traffic measures were put in place to encourage sustainable travel by spectators while allowing the normal life of the community to continue.
While the second section consists of general papers which may, at first sight, appear to be unconnected with the sporting events section, there are parallels. Seco's paper on engineering archaeology deals with the inevitable question of how to approach, investigate and present pre-existing structures found on site. Legacy can work in both directions–what we leave for the future and what previous generations have left for us.
The paper by Murphy outlines school attendance and the educational implications of an over-reliance on the car for journeys to school. In many ways this is the micro version of transport planning for major events. All pupils have to be at a venue on time; pupils with good transport have less absenteeism than those without. Perhaps this could be scaled up to a major sporting event; better transport means more spectators could be in attendance.
The paper by Williams concerns litter near supermarkets and addresses the consequences of a major pedestrian destination and its associated litter problems. How much litter is deposited, what are the consequences and how can it be reduced?
The final paper by Wearne gives an overview of recovery and restoration of infrastructure following widespread damage or disruption of services. This is a crucial issue that should be at the heart of the business continuity plan for every organisation and for any major event.
