Government must be honest about Olympics tickets, Assembly demands
Public confidence could be damaged if government bodies take up too many tickets for next year’s Olympics or fail to account for them, the London Assembly warns today.
Around 14,000 tickets have been reserved for various government departments.
The Assembly’s Sport & Tourism committee calls on Boris Johnson—who is entitled as London Mayor to 2,000 tickets himself—to take the lead and publish a register of who gets them, why it is justified and how they’ll be paid for.
“Reserving 14,000 tickets for the Government does seem excessive,” said the committee’s deputy chair Dee Doocey.
“Every seat taken up by a politician or Whitehall official is one less for the public.
“So it’s vital they are transparent about who gets tickets and who foots the bill.”
But the committee has also welcomed a change to tickets for the disabled, following pressure on the organisers.
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Lord Coe’s London 2012 committee has agreed to 6,450 free tickets for carers accompanying disabled spectators who wouldn’t otherwise attend. They had originally only planned free tickets to carers pushing wheelchairs.
