"Honest meeting with some strong views" held after criticism of lack of diversity for Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games

The meeting comes after the Asian community and cultural leaders in Sandwell demanded the organisers of Birmingham 2022 to improve diversity last month.

Birmingham Mela, billed as the UK's biggest South Asian music festival, wrote an on open letter questioning the diversity of the 2022 Games.

In the letter, it is complained that funding for accompanying cultural programme has "sidestepped Indian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities".

Representatives from the Birmingham 2022 team, Andy Street, Mayor of the West Midlands and community leaders all met on April 27 in what was described as a "very honest meeting with some strong views expressed."

Annie Hairsine, director of strategic programme and executive office for Birmingham 2022, said: "Representatives from the Birmingham 2022 team attended the meeting with faith and community leaders.

"We’ve had many meetings with different groups in recent months, but it was very useful to have lots of representatives around the same table.

"We listened to the contributions made by everyone and are now focused on taking on-board the learnings from this meeting to further enhance our current plans in the build up to the Games.

"Thousands of people from communities across Birmingham and the region are already part of our workforce, volunteer programme, ceremonies, cultural festival and youth programme and many more are benefitting from projects that are being delivered as part of the cross-partner legacy programme and we are looking forward to working together to find more ways that we can reach and involve even more local people."

Andy Street added: "Grateful to faith and community leaders for taking the time to attend yesterday at a constructive meeting with Commonwealth Games leadership.

"It was a very honest meeting with some strong views expressed around the table.

"It was great to hear the clear commitment from Games organisers to practical action in the next 90 days that will make a real difference for communities."