Officials at the Government agency, responsible for the distribution of £600 million worth of National Lottery funding, yesterday admitted they were concerned about how shooting was ran.

 

Under its new traffic light system they marked it as "red" - meanting there is "a clear obstacle to progress" which is "likely to result in signifcant under performance, wasted resources or harm to individuals".

 

Phil Boakes, the chairman of of British Shooting, told insidethegames: “We acknowledge the concerns contained in the report and indeed some of them we have raised ourselves with UK Sport.

 

"We know there are problems that need addressing and we are working closely with UK Sport to resolve them.

 

"These include lack of facilities in the UK and handgun legislation.

 

"There are issues which can be resolved in the short-term, others will take longer.

 

"On a positive note our shooters continue to compete well at international level having just won medals in Cyprus and Germany and preparations for Beijing continue to go well.

 

"Clearly the decision not to have a permanent facility for the London 2012 Olympics with a legacy for the future does not help and is a lost opportunity.”  

 

Boakes claims that the venue proposed in Greenwich will cost up to £26 million and still leave the sport with nothing to show for it.

 

He said: "An enormous amount of money is going to be squandered.

 

"The £26 million it is going to cost is made up of £18.6 million to build the facilities and £4 million to demolish after the Games (plus VAT) and there will be virtually no legacy for the sport."

 

Boakes is supported by the former Sports Minister Kate Hoey.

 

Writing in The Daily Telegraph in a column published today she said: "For the governing bodies of the Olympic sports it is not only winning medals which is important but ensuring their sport receives tangible benefits which will help ensure a long-term legacy.

 

"No one wants to see money wasted which is why British Shooting are so disappointed at the way their sport has been treated.

 

"In order to help London win the bid, the team needed to show the International Olympic Committee that they could deliver a compact Games.

 

"Even though there had been no formal agreement that shooting sports would be located at the Royal Artillery Barracks, Woolwich, that was the venue put into the 2012 bid document. When this was queried British Shooting were told not to 'rock the boat' and endanger London's chances and that if the Capital's bid was successful, then changes could be made thereafter.

 

"Now I may be missing something here but surely common sense tells us that spending £23?million for a three-week makeover is rather crazy.

 

"Not so much a white elephant as an invisible elephant, save the missing millions in the 2012 piggy bank."

 

The full article can be read at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=A1YourView&xml=/sport/2008/03/18/sohoey118.xml.