A look at the legacy the Commonwealth Games will leave in our region

Since Manchester hosted the Games in 2002, there has been a strategy for creating venues with a view to longer-term use by the community following the completion of the Games.

In Manchester, the velodrome and swimming pool have become community venues as well as world-class training facilities, while the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre has become a vital part of the cultural setting in Glasgow after the 2014 Games.

The greatest legacy, however, has come from the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, which was the first games to have a Legacy-criteria fitted to it to ensure venues did not fall out of use or become expensive white elephants.

The Copper Box, the Swimming centre, Lee Valley VeloPark and Olympic stadium were all funded and built with legacy in mind, allowing for continual use in the future and a place in the community.

The Legacy clause is now a factor in any Games bid going forwards and two of the venues at Birmingham 2022 bear witness to this clause in Alexander Stadium and the Sandwell Aquatics Centre.

Alexander Stadium will be the focus of the world on Thursday, July 28 as it holds the opening ceremony, as well as hosting six days of athletics and the final act of the games on Monday, August 8 with the closing ceremony.

The stadium in Perry Barr was first opened in 1976 and became the home of UK Athletics in 2011 following a refurbishment which saw the creation of the 5,000-seater East Stand on the back straight.

In June 2017, during the preparation of the Birmingham bid for the Games, the Birmingham bid committee proposed to renovate the Alexander Stadium and use it for hosting the athletics and ceremonies of the Games.

Councillor Ian Ward, leader of Birmingham City Council, said the Games had been the catalyst for the work to upgrade a stadium which had, to some, been seen as a 1970s-style stadium.

He said: "The Commonwealth Games is definitely the catalyst for the upgrade of the stadium as we had a stadium which was dated and in danger of ending up like Crystal Palace in London.

"The fact that we successfully bid for the Games has allowed the investment to go in and has now given us a stadium which is on par with anywhere in the world, as well as becoming the national centre for athletics in the UK.

"You can see looking at the stadium that it's had the money spent on it and it looks fantastic and we're all ready to go to welcome the world to the Commonwealth Games."

More than £72 million has been spent on renovating the stadium, including demolishing and building a new stand on the home straight and creating a permanent capacity of 18,000, with temporary seating installed for the Games for 30,000 spectators.

Post-Games, as well as continuing to stage major athletics events, the stadium will become a focal point for leisure and community activity within the regenerated Perry Barr district of Birmingham, which is receiving in excess of £700million investment ahead of Birmingham 2022.

Councillor Ward said he had spoken with other councillors about the long-term legacy of the stadium and how he hoped it could become a venue for future championships going forwards.

He said: "We've got to make sure the stadium is utilised during all 365 days of the year, so it will still be the home of Birchfield Harriers athletics club, one of the top clubs in the country.

"UK Athletics will continue to be based there and Birmingham City University is putting its sports faculty at the stadium, plus we are talking to other sports about relocating there as well and creating a genuine sporting village there.

"It will be a great opportunity for them and, additionally, a great opportunity for the local community to come and take part in sports and physical activities as well.

"We've also bid for the 2026 European Athletics Championships and would like to use the stadium for that and as a platform to put this city, again, on the international stage."

The work at Alexander Stadium helped to renovate an existing structure, whereas the work to create a brand new Aquatics centre helped to raise a structure from the ground up.

The Centre in Smethwick is the only brand-new building built for the Games and will be the busiest for events during the Games, with 64 medal events taking place over 11 days for swimming and diving.

The brand new facility features a 50-metre competition pool with moveable floors to allow them to be programmed for a wide variety of uses, a 25-metre diving pool and 10-metre dive tower.

It also has a dry diving centre, sauna and steam room and a range of other facilities including a sports hall and outdoor football pitch, as well as room for 4,000 spectators during the Games and 1,000 permanent spectator seats after the Games.

Post-Games, the Sandwell Aquatics Centre will replace ageing leisure facilities with a modern hub designed to promote health and wellbeing across the district as part of a community focus in 2023.

The brand-new centre is the result of a collaborative effort between Sandwell Council and local and community stakeholders, as well as Wates Construction, the main building firm behind the planning and construction of the centre.

Helen Martin, managing director for the Central region for Wates, said the decision to build the centre where it stands was a good example of the collaborative effort between the different stakeholders and said it was an important step towards creating a positive legacy.

She said: "From my perspective, the decision to build the centre where it is, is really supportive of the conversations around regeneration and community investment and how we work with communities to deliver new jobs and skills.

"Before the first brick was even laid, we were talking about how this building was going to be used in terms of the diversity, inclusion and accessibility for everyone, such as the women-only gym, submerisible lifts into the community pools for disabled people and how we can put sports wheelchairs into the venue.

"We need to make sure the venue is functional, meets the needs of the community and we think about the environment, which includes increasing biodiversity and encouraging new species into the area."

There are a number of technically complex features delivered as part of the build, which included 190,000 tiles laid perfectly as part of the build, some 3,000m3 of concrete used in the pool’s construction and installation of 14 steel trusses, each spanning 75 meters and weighing 30 tonnes.

Helen Martin said the response from people who had seen it and had the chance to compete inside it had been wonderful and said the best endorsement had come from a multi-time Paralympics champion.

She said: "We were delighted to be able to host Ellie Simmons recently and give her a tour of the building and it was great to see the look on her face at seeing it all.

"She spoke about the challenges she had when she was training and didn't have access to anything like this on her doorstep and had to relocate and live away from home, so it gave her goosebumps to see the facility.

"It's wonderful to think that people across this community will have access to this fantastic facility and the best bit is the legacy that we've created for people who may never have dreamed of being able to go to a place like this.

"The proudest moment for all of us will be seeing it on TV for the first time and then looking ahead to where it will be in 20, 30 or even 40 years from now and what it can do for younger people as it really could be transformative for them."