News from Dr Onkar Sahota: Scrapping Tour de France is a “huge missed opportunity”

Labour London Assembly Member Dr Onkar Sahota has criticised Boris Johnson’s decision to pull out of London hosting the first leg of the 2017 Tour de France as a “huge missed opportunity” for the capital. The criticism comes after it was reported that the Mayor had ordered TfL to withdraw from negotiations only a day before the contract was due to be signed.

Dr Onkar Sahota AM criticised the ‘chaotic’ nature of the decision and said that London would lose a prime opportunity to showcase itself to the world. He also warned that the capital would miss out on vast economic benefits, pointing to a report on the recent hosting of the Tour first leg in Yorkshire which found it contributed almost £130m to the local economy with 4.8m people coming out to line the route. When the Tour was last held in London in 2007, TfL analysis concluded that “in terms of the economic gains, numbers attending and positive media coverage, the Tour de France was an extremely successful UK event.”

Dr Onkar Sahota, Labour Assembly Member for Ealing & Hillingdon said:

“Whether the Tour de France, Rugby World Cup or Olympics, these kind of events act as a great shop window for the city and provide vital economic boosts far outweighing the costs. Hosting the event in 2017 would have been another amazing chance to showcase London to the world, turning it down in such a chaotic manner is a huge missed opportunity.

“Not only will local businesses miss out on the massive economic benefits to be reaped, we will let another opportunity to promote cycling pass us by. We all know Boris Johnson is a big fan of these kind of events, you can’t help but wonder whether he would be so keen to scrap Le Tour if he wasn’t stepping down as Mayor next year.”