City Operations Programme (Supplementary) [13]

Neale Coleman (Director of London 2012 Coordination): It is an issue, obviously. We chose the £50,000 amount having done, as I say, some quite detailed work actually, using Sutton town centre as an example, of what did we think we needed for people to make a real impact in terms of making their town centre or shopping centre look special as a focus for events and other activity or whatever else they wanted to do. Obviously the issue around what everybody in London is getting is a tricky one. The Mayor's view on this, I think, is as far as possible, wherever we can, to try and spread some of the significant benefits of all the things we are doing across London. This is part of that. I accept it is a slightly limited thing. For example, I think that is why he has been particularly concerned to try and ensure that the scheme that we are running with LOCOG to provide free tickets for school children is available on the same basis right across London to everyone who has been involved in supporting the Games through the extra council tax.

Steve O'Connell (AM): Neale, thank you for your reply. I sense, to a degree, that you are scratching around to find things that will benefit the Bromleys and the Bexleys and the Croydons and the Lewishams. I would urge that if there is any excess money, once you have gone through the budget, let us try to look at how you can give some money to those boroughs because, at the end of the day, you and I know, through our experience with local authorities, £50,000 doesn't go a long way in a very large borough when we actually want to celebrate the Games. Although you said you are quite flexible, surely the use of it is limited to the LOCOG Littlewoods catalogue and you must use the specific branded bunting that Len referred to earlier.

Neale Coleman (Director of London 2012 Coordination): Yes. We have said people either have to use the supplies that are available from the LOCOG Look Book, which will be published shortly, or they have to use it to buy content from the Outdoor Arts Festival that we are running, but those are alternative possibilities.

Steve O'Connell (AM): My last point really around branding is, obviously what we would want to happen is lots of street parties flourishing throughout all our boroughs, be it host boroughs or not, and I am sure there will be. Do we anticipate a problem in branding? For example, I may want a street party in Valley Road, at the bottom of my road, and those good residents there will probably want to say, 'Olympics Party: come along and have a cup of tea and a glass of wine'. They are going to have a problem with that aren't they?

Neale Coleman (Director of London 2012 Coordination): Well, brand protection is a much vexed question for us all in dealing with this and there is always a lot of frustration I think, particularly with the organising committee who, to be fair to them, have had to raise about £800 million through effectively selling their brand and, therefore, do need to protect it. At Games time there will be anxiety around major ambush marketing, which happens at every Games perpetrated by major commercial organisations to try and effectively ambush the Games in one way or another by doing things that are not permitted by the advertising regulations and, clearly, a lot of effort will go into doing that. I doubt if there will be much resource available or expended or prioritised to deal with residents who want to celebrate the Games. I think it is extremely unlikely that anybody would want to do anything to interrupt something that obviously didn't have a commercial or ambush purpose.

Steve O'Connell (AM): Let's hope so. Thank you very much.