Image: Stalker has urged a unified approach to legacy

Fitness Industry Association (FIA) CEO David Stalker has called on all political parties and stakeholders across the leisure sector to join forces in order to ensure a lasting legacy from the 2012 London Olympics.

In a passionate blog post, Stalker heralded the Olympics as a "magical event" and added that to squander the opportunity of benefiting from the mood created by the Games would be "criminally negligent".

Stalker wrote: "Creating a lasting legacy from the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games is too important for knee-jerk decisions and party political positioning. We've been given the opportunity to harness the excitement of a generation which truly has been inspired.

"Even before the Games, we learnt that Tony Blair was to return as a policy advisor to Labour on legacy. Yesterday we had the announcement that Seb Coe would take up the same role for the government. My hope is that they pick up the phone to each other and tackle this challenge hand in hand."

He also offered seven key recommendations for legacy plans, which include ensuring that the thousands of volunteers who helped make the Games aren't "lost" as a resource, while also making sure exercise is established as a routine part of the prevention and management of chronic disease.

To read Stalker's blog post in full, click here.

• To read more about the immediate legacy plans – including UK Sport receiving £125m a year over the next four years to support Team GB going into the Rio 2016 Games – click here.