JONATHAN EDWARDS has claimed the cuts to sport and leisure services in the North-East would have been worse had London not been hosting next year’s Olympic Games.

Edwards, a board member of the London Organising Committee, visited Redcar, in east Cleveland, yesterday, to help dig the first sod of soil on the site of the Redcar Leisure and Community Heart, a £31m development funded by Redcar and Cleveland Council.

The development is only possible because funding was secured and ringfenced before the current round of local government spending cuts, and occurs at a time when most other councils are slashing their funding for leisure projects.

Durham County Council is closing leisure centres in Crook and Ferryhill, while Sherburn Leisure Centre was only saved last month after the parish council agreed to turn it into a community club – but Edwards feels the situation would have been worse had London not been gearing up to host the Olympics.

The two-time triple jump world champion said: “It seems completely wrong- Echo Business Closing share prices 16-page pullout headed to have an Olympics and Paralympics Games and talk about legacy at the same time as cuts are happening.

“But those cuts would have happened anyway and my sense is that sport has been protected more than it would have been if we didn’t have 2012.

“In terms of the priority of sport within Government and local communities, I think it is at a higher level than it would have been had London not been hosting the Olympics, because it has put sport, health and physical activity on the agenda in a way it probably wouldn’t have been otherwise.

“That was one of the hopes of bidding for the Games – that sport would move higher up the political agenda,” he added.

Edwards, who gave a presentation on the Games at Rye Hills School, Redcar, refuted suggestions the region was not getting its fair share of the Olympic pie.

He said: “I’ve lived in the North-East long enough to know there’s a feeling of them and us between the South and the North, but North-East companies are winning business contracts, and you’re talking tens, if not hundreds, of millions of pounds that have flowed into the regional economy because of the Olympics.

“That’s a really important message because it’s all very well talking about less tangible opportunities, but you can measure the regional success of these Games in hard cash.”