On a warm day in April 2018, hundreds of dancers formed the word #BRUM across Victoria Square in Birmingham, and the city cheered.

As they performed the final move of our city’s handover segment for the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games closing ceremony, beamed live into the faraway stadium and to screens around the world, the hosts in Australia said, “Wow, wasn’t that incredible? They must have been rehearsing that for months!”

It had been, in fact, mere weeks. Birmingham had been named as host city for the 2022 Commonwealth Games on the 21st of December 2017, and at the same time was handed the unique honour and challenge of doing what hadn’t been done before: to deliver in four years an international multi sports event that would normally take up to eight.

This wasn’t quite what we’d planned. It’s long been an ambition of Birmingham to host major events; we’d put in serious bids before, including for the 1992 Olympics.

The venues built for that bid by former generations of councillors have been used since to host scores of competitions, most recently the World Indoor Athletics and several key matches in the Cricket World Cup, and were ready and waiting for a bigger challenge.

With 90% of the venues needed already in place, and a prime site near the city centre begging for redevelopment, the city saw a golden opportunity, and work started for the city to bid for the Games in 2026.

Then, suddenly, things changed. In March 2017 Durban, the city due to host the 2022 competition, relinquished the right to do so, and the UK government made it clear they wanted a British bid.

Following the country’s decision to vote Leave, the resurgence of the Commonwealth was a key part of the political promise for a brighter, post- Brexit, future. Birmingham was asked, would we consider bringing our bid forward? It was made clear that if another UK city got 2022, then 2026 was off the cards for us. 

So, the city looked at its options and decided it could. By then Birmingham City Council had lost nearly £700m pounds in funding from a combination of austerity and soaring service demand; homes were needed, jobs were needed, and this was a one-off opportunity to bring our people both.

The biggest challenge would be getting capital projects built in time, exactly the same challenge faced by any other major event. But with our portfolio of venues already in place, the risk was significantly lower than for most other cities, and after much soul searching and strategising it was agreed that going for 2022 was the right thing to do.

Birmingham thought so; Theresa May’s government, which backed our bid thought so; the Commonwealth Games Federation, that chose us, thought so.

We started clearing sites, recruiting those Handover Ceremony dancers – and crucially, negotiating with Government how we were going to make this work. Work progressed on the Athletes Village at pace - in just 364 days Birmingham City Council had assembled the site, demolished its buildings, cleared the site, remediated the land and secured planning permission.

For most previous host cities, this process had taken at least three years – we’d done it in less than one. That pace continued as we began construction on site.

Two years on, suddenly, things changed again. I’m sat not at my council desk typing this but at home, where I’ve been working for nearly five months.

The world has been gripped by a pandemic on a scale not seen in a century. Everything is different, the most fundamental of which is how close we can be to other people we don’t live with in order to keep ourselves and those we love alive.

Amid the tragedy, this small fact of separation is also turning into a global economic catastrophe, affecting, not least, construction and global supply chains.

The Athletes’ Village at Perry Barr was always going to be the tightest thing to deliver for the 2022 games. But as the realities of Covid became apparent, everyone had to accept that ‘tight’ was turning into impossible.

The effort and money are by no means wasted: the homes will still be built and the athletes will still come to Birmingham, housed instead at university campuses and conference venues.

Counterintuitively, this outcome will work out better for many, with competitors being housed near to their venues and training facilities. We’ll save significant environmental costs on not having to rip out extra locks, bathrooms and kitchens after games time to retrofit homes for sale.

It’s not what we set out to do, but it’s certainly not a second-rate solution; the Commonwealth Games Federation have stated that multiple campus village models are becoming a viable option for future Games to ensure greater affordability and access to the future hosting ambitions of cities.

Would we still have bid, knowing what we know now? Well, as the UK economy enters into recession, Birmingham is beyond lucky to have the Games on the close horizon. Jobs, contracts and opportunities for our people will grow and grow in the next two years, homes will be built, transport links will be upgraded.

The city has been quietly transforming for the last twenty years, and is ready to emerge from its concrete shadows, proudly glittering onto the world stage.

Taking on the Games with half the normal time to deliver it was a bold step – but Birmingham is made by its people, a history shaped by them innovation and hard work, taking bold steps to be where we now are.

When we set out to bid for 2026, we didn’t anticipate we’d be prepping for 2022. We even less anticipated how sad and strange 2020 would be. We didn’t appreciate we’d be hosting a Games in times like no other. But we certainly know we’ll deliver one our people will be proud of.

This blog was posted on 14 August 2020