British athletics trudges long road to nowhere

Wembley, Twickenham, Picketts Lock and now Sheffield. The search goes on for a new home track

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Scrapping of stadium deals blow to athletics

Picketts Lock fiasco threatens Olympic bid

Less than seven months ago the Picketts Lock stadium was unveiled to the world's press, with Chris Smith, then Secretary of State for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, describing it as "the best thing to happen to athletics in the UK for a generation". Sadly for Smith the stadium involved was only a model of the one proposed as host for the 2005 World Athletics Championships and a long-standing home base for the domestic sport.

For British athletics, it has been a long and winding road to yesterday's underwhelming view, a journey which offered tantalising views of Wembley, then – briefly – Twickenham, then Picketts Lock before what promises to be the briefest vision of all – Sheffield.

The meandering began with the decision in November 1997 to hand over £120m of Lottery money to buy Wembley stadium from Wembley plc with a view to revamping it into the new National Stadium for football, rugby league and athletics.

In September 1998, Primo Nebiolo, then president of the International Amateur Athletic Federation, said he wanted the 2003 World Championships to be held at Wembley, and the next month Tony Blair guaranteed that that would come to pass. But delays over exactly what form the National Stadium should take undermined the bid, and eventually UK Athletics was obliged to shift its focus to the 2005 version.

The vision of incorporating athletics into Wembley once again, 50 years after it had hosted the Olympics, began to blur when Wembley National Stadium Limited, a subsidiary of the Football Association, took over the site in March 1999.

As the football authorities set about trying to raise the bulk of the £475m the WNSL chairman Ken Bates foresaw being required to redevelop the Wembley site, it became clear that athletics did not enter the picture. The idea of having an athletics track in the way of the pitch did not appeal to Bates and Co.

An original design to place an athletics track into the stadium on a raised concrete platform, which would be in place for the stadium's first major event, the 2005 World Athletics Championships, and subsequently removed, was reviewed in the summer of 1999 at the instigation of Smith and newly installed Minister for Sport, Kate Hoey.

In December 1999, the commissioned report concluded that it was unfeasible to fit athletics into Wembley successfully using the platform design and Smith announced that a separate stadium would be built. The FA were subsequently told to they had to hand back £20m of £120m Lottery money it had been given to buy the stadium.

In the meantime, the FA ran into a financial crisis when it was refused a £450m City loan for the stadium. On the eve of the General Election it sought a hand-out of between £150m-170m from the Government to build a cheaper version of Wembley. The request was refused.

Even at that point, however, there was dissension within Government ranks as a parliamentary sub-committee under the chairmanship of Gerald Kaufman concluded that there was no reason why athletics could not be hosted at Wembley. A rebuttal from Smith's office was printed and available to members of the press even as they left the room after hearing Kaufman's summing up.

There was a period when Smith suggested Twickenham as a venue before residents blocked that route. Then other locations in the London area put in their bids, and Picketts Lock, in Enfield, was chosen. It was to be a 43,000-seat stadium for the World Championships which would be reduced to a 20,000 capacity for future events. It was exactly what UK Athletics wanted as a legacy beyond the Championships.

It was another vision that faded under scrutiny from a review carried out by Patrick Carter, a non-executive director of the Prison Service.

The Carter review on Picketts Lock's feasibility sought assurances that a shortfall in funding would be met, given the fact that around 20 per cent of total estimated costs had yet to be covered. It questioned whether future athletics events and commercial activities would bring in enough money to prevent the stadium from becoming a white elephant. It also investigated whether any major planning issues would delay a decision on planning consent from Enfield Council beyond May 2002.

Now that Carter has forecast that the stadium will cost closer to £120m, rather than the £87m which has been quoted in the past, the Government has weighed economy against credibility, and come down on the side of money.