It's been drawn to my attention that some of you may still have the wrong idea about what High Street 2012 actually is. My writing over the last fortnight may not have sufficiently highlighted key on-message information, and readers may therefore have jumped to incorrect conclusions about the nature of this Games-related project. Through my blog I could have inadvertently introduced unchallenged misinformation into our national consciousness, creating a negative feedback situation in which hard-won Olympic brand value awareness potential might be irrevocably diminished. Which would be awful.
So let's clear things up. High Street 2012 is a legacy project based around the historic road from Aldgate to Stratford. It's about aspirational public realm improvement, providing achievable and sustainable planning impetus along a historic urban corridor, acting as a catalyst for the further regeneration of East London. Sorry, that's really dull, isn't it? Maybe that's why some of you might not have read it properly last time, and just skipped to the words High Street 2012 instead. "Ooh," you might have thought, "some idiot committee is renaming all the roads." But they're not. I never said they were, but obviously some of you might be thick enough to assume the worst. And we can't have officialdom worrying about this sort of thing can we? So let me just say it again, really clearly...
No roads will be renamed High Street 2012. Whitechapel High Street will never be rebranded Olympic Boulevard. Nobody will ever have the address 680a High Street 2012. This is simply a major planning project attached to millions of pounds of funding for architectural improvement and community cohesion, all targeted at four miles of heritage roadway. Some very heritage roadway, as we've been discovering over the last two weeks, and greatly in need of a tidy-up. But not a renaming. Just so you know.
Maybe someone will email me next and ask me to point out that 2012 is a year, and not shortly before quarter past eight. But nobody's that stupid, surely? OK, quick, before I haemmorrhage even more readers than I've lost over the last fortnight, let's move on...
High Street 2012
