By Tom Degun in London

June 10 - Hugh Robertson (pictured) today revealed his vision on the key changes he hopes to make to the sporting landscape in Britain over the next five years with a tangible sports legacy from London 2012 being one of his primary goals.



In his first official speech since being appointed by new Prime Minister David Cameron last month to replace Tessa Jowell as Olympics Minister and Gerry Sutcliffe as Sports Minister, Robertson addressed national governing bodies at the British Olympic Association (BOA) outlining London 2012 legacy plans that he claimed are both sensible and deliverable, as first reported by insidethegames earlier today.

Robertson said: "Developing a mass participation legacy for sport from London 2012 is one of my top three priorities.

"I want to see a marked, sustained, cultural shift toward greater participation in sport and I have today informed Sport England that going forward, it will have two clear priorities; supporting sports governing bodies through the whole sport plan and delivering a mass participation sports legacy from London 2012.

"To deliver this, Sport England will focus on improving facility provision and developing sport at community level."

Robertson also revealed that proposals are being developed to bring together UK Sport, Sport England and Youth Sport Trust under one roof although he insisted that they will maintain their individual identities. 

He said: "They will be under one roof and essentially be one organisation but with they will still be three divisions retaining their separate roles and responsibilities.

"By going in this direction, we are going to produce a proper, unified, modern structure for sport with no more pointless fighting and squabbling amongst each other."

Meanwhile, work is underway to develop an Olympic and Paralympic style school sport competition which Robertson said he will give more detail on in the following weeks.

The MP for Faversham and Mid Kent said: "The UK School Games already does a lot of great work with children at the top level of sport.

"But what there isn’t in this country at the moment is a system that gets individual primary schools playing sport against each other before going through to a proper district level where you see districts compete against each other.

"That happens in Kent with the Kent School Games but we want to make sure that this happening in every county in the near future."

In addition, Robertson stated that consultation is underway to create a specific Major Sports Events Bill designed to make it easier to win and host major events which in turn will create more revenue for the county.

Robertson said: "That will be bought in instead of a 2018 [World Cup] specific bid Bill, if we win the bid, which will act as a calling card for sport National Governing Bodies here to go to their international federations and show that if they come to this country, we can deliver you the following things."

In the final key change Robertson announced today, he revealed that plans are progressing quickly to increase sports’ share of lottery returns from 16 to 20 per cent which is estimated to lead to an increase of £50 million ($74 million) a year to sport by 2012.

Following Robertson’s speech, Colin Moynihan, chairman of the BOA, expressed his pleasure at hearing the outline of the new Sports and Olympic Minister’s reforms.

Moynihan said: "We greatly appreciate the Minister taking time to join members of our Olympic sports at today’s meeting and present his vision to reform sport in the UK.

"We share his ambition to deliver a lasting legacy from the 2012 Games, so it was appropriate that his plans should be announced here at the British Olympic Association, the home of Olympic and Paralympic sport.

"We are pleased to have the opportunity to work closely with the Minister in developing an even stronger system for sport in our nation, and expanding opportunities for participation in sport for athletes of every age and level of ability."

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