Meeting of the Parliament 07 August 2014
I thank the member for that intervention.
The advantage of having a lot of young people was the level of enthusiasm and energy that was evident. It was good to see some of the younger folk who were team leaders, and some of the temporary paid staff, who were also quite young, obviously gaining valuable experience and decision-making and leadership skills. However, the volunteers in the team that I was in seemed to be very white and very female. I wonder, too, whether the volunteers were mainly folk from better-off backgrounds. One Clyde-sider from down south told me that taking part had cost him £2,000. Obviously, however, for local folk, there was virtually no cost in doing so.
It was good to have volunteers from different parts of the UK and beyond, although some of them suffered from a lack of local knowledge. One evening, the train stopped running to Exhibition Centre station and we were asked to explain to people how they could get home. That could have been challenging for folk who did not know where the city centre is or where people could catch a number 2 bus. Maybe we need to think about the local knowledge of volunteers in the future.
I have mentioned the legacy of our ability to run such events and the volunteering legacy, which I hope can continue. The third and final legacy that I want to touch on—I am sure that other members will talk about other issues—is the physical local legacy. My constituents and I have something very real and physical from the games. We have the games village becoming 700 new homes, including social rented properties, owned properties and a care home. We have the Emirates arena and velodrome for a range of major and minor sports. We have the improved Tollcross pool for both serious and leisure swimmers. We have the Scottish hockey centre, although I hope that that sport can be spread out among many more young people in schools. We also have great new infrastructure in roads and the Clyde gateway, which have helped regeneration by bringing business and jobs into the area.
On behalf of my Glasgow Shettleston constituency, I say that we are very grateful for all the investment that there has been. Sure, both residents and businesses have been disrupted, in some cases severely, but the long-term benefit is hard to argue against. There is more to be done, but we have been given a superb lift up in order to get on with the job.
15:21