Sheffield celebrates Olympic legacy with “major” investment conference

Sheffield is planning to celebrate Great Britain’s Olympic legacy with a “major” investment conference.

The conference and celebratory dinner featuring a line-up of sporting superstars, will be delivered by Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park to mark the 10th anniversary of London 2012.

The Park was set up after the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games to deliver whole population improvements in health and wellbeing. It is the only Legacy Park outside an Olympic host city anywhere in the world and has already created a unique site attracting over £100m of private and public investment over the last seven years.

Bringing together expertise from academia, elite sport, the NHS, and public and private sector organisations, the Park is creating a unique cluster of life sciences assets including research centres, business incubators, educational facilities and laboratories for collaborative research and innovation in health and wellbeing.

Richard Caborn, chair, Legacy Park Ltd, said: “If Sheffield had been a country in 2012 it would have come 14th in the medal table through the athletes we developed and trained in the English Institute of Sport Sheffield and we have not stopped there.

“We have brought sports science and medicine, sports psychology and engineering together to create a unique legacy unrivalled anywhere in the world and I don’t think it could have happened anywhere else but Sheffield.

“This hot-housing of health and wellbeing skills and innovation with elite and community sport, which not only drives economic growth and community regeneration but also delivers whole population health gains, is a model attracting national and global interest and investment.”

Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park will also host a three-day ‘Olympic Legacy in Action’ community weekend in June with city-wide and local service delivery partners providing a variety of free sport, health and wellbeing taster sessions.

Further developments at the park include a new community stadium, as well as a 120,000 sq ft Innovation Centre to support start-up and scale-up businesses in the health, wellbeing, sport and activity sectors, which will create up to 5,600 high-value jobs.

Funding has also been secured to ensure work will start on a National Centre for Child Health Technology at the Park. This will develop technologies to address key national strategic priorities in child health including childhood obesity, child and adolescent mental health, cancer, disabilities, long term conditions and prevention.