page_title: Concerns and controversies at the 2022 Commonwealth Games
section_title: Track cycling
hierarchical_section_title: Concerns and controversies at the 2022 Commonwealth Games / Selection of venues / Track cycling
caption_attribution_description: English: Derby Arena
context_page_description: There have been concerns and controversies about the 2022 Commonwealth Games, which will be hosted in Birmingham, England.
context_section_description: The track cycling of the 2022 Commonwealth Games will be hosted at the Lee Valley VeloPark velodrome in London which is 136 miles (218 km) away from the Games host city Birmingham. This was confirmed by Ian Ward, Leader of the Birmingham City Council and Head of the Birmingham 2022 bid, on the day of Games host city announcement. He cited the reason that West Midlands do not have a suitable facility to host track cycling. The Birmingham bid committee had investigated using the Derby Arena in Derby to hold track cycling or converting the Arena Birmingham into a temporary velodrome but instead chose to use the Lee Valley VeloPark velodrome in London. The Lee Valley VeloPark is situated on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, East London and has previously hosted the track cycling of the 2012 Summer Olympics and Paralympics as well as the 2016 UCI Track Cycling World Championships. 
  The people of Birmingham and the West Midlands were shocked and unhappy with the bid committee's decision as the people from Midlands would have to travel 136 miles to London to watch the track cycling event of the 2022 Commonwealth Games. In January 2018, a petition addressed to Ian Ward was launched by Charlie Dickens, a citizen from West Midlands, on Change.org, calling for a velodrome to be constructed in the West Midlands for use at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. It claimed that the construction of a venue would help to develop the sport in the West Midlands region with a population of 5.6 million people with no indoor velodrome. The petition named four-time world champion and Commonwealth Games gold medallist Hugh Porter and Olympians Jess Varnish and Andy Tennant as cyclists who have come from the region to compete at the highest level of the sport. The petition asserted that velodromes could be used as a multi-sport facility by hosting basketball, netball, table tennis and boxing, as well as staging non-sporting events, such as music concerts. Over 5,000 people had signed the petition within four months from the date of bid committee's decision and former International Cycling Union President Brian Cookson and Olympic gold medallist Chris Boardman also supported the petition of bringing a velodrome to the West Midlands.
  In September 2018, Ian Ward defended the committee's decision of selecting the velodrome in London rather than constructing a new velodrome in the West Midlands and also claimed that the decision was reached in consultation with British Cycling and Sport England. He said that constructing a new velodrome would cost £50 million which could have disturbed the Games' as well as the council's budget. Further he added that the bid committee had asked the Origin Sports Group to carry out feasibility work to assess the viability of installing a temporary track to ensure track cycling would be part of the Games. They also continued to explore both temporary options in the city as well as looking at venues within the region, such as Derby Arena. To meet the CGF's venue requirements for hosting track cycling, minimum seating capacity must be 4,000 which ruled out the temporary options that were being explored in the city, as well as Derby Arena. The only suitable velodromes in the country are Lee Valley VeloPark velodrome London, which has 6,500 seats, and Manchester Velodrome, which could install sufficient temporary seating to meet the 4,000 minimum capacity. The organising committee finally agreed with the Lee Valley VeloPark in London to host the track cycling events of the Games. He also added that the construction of a £50 million velodrome would have made staging the Games, as a whole, an unviable proposition, which he meant that the city and region would have missed out the legacy benefits of new housing, better transport and a repositioned international profile.
  In March 2020, British Cycling issued a "Cycling Facility Assessment" which stated that building a new velodrome in Birmingham was not considered a “high priority” and did not have an adequately stable strategic or business case to support such an
caption: Derby Arena was rejected by the Birmingham organising committee to host track cycling
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