Olympic heroes and heroines - but at what cost?

The Big Lottery Fund - one of the fourteen lottery distributors in the UK - is responsible for giving out half the money raised by the National Lottery for Good Causes. Its funding goes to community groups, and projects promoting health, education and the environment.

Last week it announced that it was reducing the amount of money available to projects with young people and for medical research by £13m. And the reason? The 2012 Olympics.

Bear in mind that £13m cut is in addition to a whopping £638m reduction in available lottery funds last year to help pay for the rising costs of the 2012 Games. The arts sector has endured substantial cuts, leading to difficult and often controversial decisions regarding which companies could be afforded Regularly Funded Organisation (RFO) status.

And now, on top of funds taken from the National Lottery, UK companies and even major trusts and foundations - which are supposedly free of political influence - coming under enormous pressure from the Government to add money to the £9.325bn Olympic kitty. This is often money which would otherwise go towards projects with charities, so the Olympics will have a detrimental impact on the UK's voluntary sector. The National Council for Voluntary Organisations says "Voluntary and community organisations doing vital work throughout the UK should not lose out to the rising costs of the infrastructure for the Games - an event that should unite us all."

Bear in mind that the amounts of money being bandied around are just for the infrastructure and do not pay for the athletes, or for the investment in sports in the UK which is supposed to be the legacy of our 2012 games. Surely it is in tune with the Olympic dream that someone inspired by watching coverage this summer might be competing in London in four years time? Well, not if they can't find anywhere to try their hand at archery, yngling or the Madison.

So join me in celebrating the success of Team GB in Beijing - but please also join me in asking the Government not to raid the collective piggy banks of the funding sources which underpin our thriving community sports, arts and charitable sectors in the UK. We are running the risk of having wonderful stadia but too few athletes to complete and too little content for the cultural Olympiad if we do not continue to invest in our world-beating arts sector.