geezer goes out...In a gentle attempt to break out of my recent hermit-like state, I've decided to try "going out and being vaguely sociable" a bit more often. I started last night with a bit of urban planning, just to get the new month off to a flying start.
As part of the British Library's phenomenally successful London: A Life In Maps exhibition (closes Sunday), a series of related talks has been running on Wednesday evenings. The last of these was given yesterday by the man in charge of 2012 Olympic planning, and hence with the job of ensuring that our taxes deliver a lasting legacy to the Games. I think our money's in safe hands.
Planning for the 2012 Olympics isn't just about making sure that all the stadia open on time. It's also about ensuring that local communities benefit from all the millions being pumped into redevelopment and new infrastructure, helping one of the poorest corners of the country to reinvent itself. It's about making sure that government funding isn't just used to spend and spend, it's used as an investment for the future. And, as Jerome explained, this isn't a new idea - it dates back to the Victorians.
Over the last 150 years there have been several attempts to revitalise various areas of London via expensive grand schemes. The Great Exhibition of 1851 inspired the development of our Museum quarter on the fringes of Hyde Park, then delivered suburban acceptability to the newly established suburbs of Sydenham. The development of Alexandra Palace in the 1870s provided another nucleus of development in North London, even though the original building burnt down within a fortnight of its opening. The British Empire Exhibition proved the catalyst for the growth of the Wembley area, and the Festival of Britain in 1951 opened up the South Bank to culture and respectability. Even the Millennium Dome, though much maligned, is finally starting to bring prosperity to the former industrial wasteland of the North Greenwich peninsula. London's history has proven time and time again that substantial investment in green space brings significant added value to the surrounding area. When viewed in the context of long-term legacy, the 2012 Olympic Games are just another example of government-sponsored regional philanthropy.
The plan for 2012 is to "start with the park". Get that right, said Jerome, and everything else should follow. The ODA started their detailed planning by considering what they'd like the Olympic Park in Stratford to look like a few years after the Games have finished, and worked back from there. Sustainable venues such as the Velodrome will be built to last. Other 'unnecessary' venues will be dismantled soon after 2012, and these adaptable plots of land given over to other uses such as housing. It's expected that at least 9000 new homes will have been built around the Olympic Park by 2025 (which, sold off at a few hundred thousand pounds each, should pay back a substantial proportion of the Games' building costs). Initial estimates suggest that the population of this part of East London may eventually rise by between 100,000 and 150,000 people (approximately one-and-a-half Olympic Stadium-fuls). And that's a lot longer-lasting legacy than two weeks of athletics.
Jerome confirmed that the Olympic site in Stratford will be barricaded off in just four months' time. The ODA plan to erect 13km of security fencing to surround the site, allowing major remediation work to begin across the 300 hectares of land within. I've long been concerned that the unique nature of the Bow Back Rivers would be eradicated by the imposition of major building works, but Jerome had reassuring words that this ought not to be the case. The plan is to "enhance, not obliterate", and steps are already underway to populate a seedbank of the Lower Lea Valley's native species to ensure their survival. It won't look or feel the same after 2012, obviously, but it was good to hear that the Olympic Park won't be a bland featureless landscape of lawns and saplings cut through by ugly concrete channels. Come July we locals are to be locked out from our favourite backyard wilderness for at least five years, probably rather longer, before the full extent of Olympic regeneration can be revealed. But after Jerome's talk I'm now more hopeful that it'll be worth the wait.
How "vaguely sociable" was it? Not very. There were about 200 of us in the audience, but we all sat far enough apart so as not to have to chat to anyone else. I did try to return a dropped pencil to its owner on my way out, but that was the total extent of my evening's conversation.
geezer goes out... In a gentle attempt to break out of my recent hermit-like state, I've decided to try "going out and being vaguely sociable" a bit more often. I started last night with a bit of urban planning, just to get the new month off to a flying start.
geezer goes out... to the British Library Conference Centre
