H&F kids miss out on Olympic tickets

Our Council has one of the worst take-up rates in London for free Olympic tickets made available by the organisers of the games specifically to ensure as many children get the chance to take part as possible. They come in at 29 out 33 boroughs for encouraging schools to take part in a scheme to get kids to the games.

In response to a recent question by Lib Dem Assembly Member Dee Doocey the Mayor revealed two things – firstly that the amount he promised in one of his blustering press releases so often swallowed unquestioningly by journalists has been woefully missed, and secondly the figures he published detailing the number of tickets taken up by schools in each borough reveals that H&F is near the bottom of the league table.

Boris promised amid much fanfare that schools who joined a scheme called “Get Set” could benefit from tickets to the games, and called on all those schools in the capital yet to become members of the London 2012 'Get Set' network to apply quickly to ensure their pupils were eligible for the 125,000 free Games tickets that were up for grabs through the London 2012 Ticketshare scheme.

So 125,000 tickets were apparently on the table – but Boris has revealed that only 95,000 have been taken up – some 30,000 short.

And Councils were called upon to encourage schools to join up – based on the league table below it would seem our own Council has done a spectacularly bad job – the numbers speak for themselves.

So – not so much a bronze medal for the Council on this one – more a wooden spoon. Even the best spinner would find it hard to put a shine on 29th out of 33.

Get Set Scheme
Question No: 416 / 2012
Dee Doocey
How many tickets in the Get Set Scheme have been allocated to schools in each of the London Boroughs (broken down by Borough)?
Written response from the Mayor

Borough	Tickets
Barking and Dagenham	2700
Barnet	4340
Bexley	3188
Brent	3250
Bromley	4224
Camden	2212
City of London	212
Croydon	4214
Ealing	3226
Enfield	4472
Greenwich	3015
Hackney	2189
Hammersmith and Fulham	2084
Haringey	2578
Harrow	3045
Havering	3532
Hillingdon	3813
Hounslow	2626
Islington	1977
Kensington and Chelsea	1223
Kingston Upon Thames	2273
Lambeth	2127
Lewisham	3201
Merton	1796
Newham	4174
Redbridge	4047
Richmond upon Thames	2413
Southwark	2589
Sutton	2888
Tower Hamlets	3472
Waltham Forest	3238
Wandsworth	3025
Westminster	2398