London 2012 Olympics saved from cuts in Comprehensive Spending Review

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Drapers Fields trashed for an Olympic depot

Grass roots sports lose- Olympics win

Schools and community sports will be the biggest losers under the Comprehensive Spending Review while the London Olympic project is likely to avoid major cuts to its budget or contingency. Losses of local sports amenities like Hackney Marshes and Drapers Fields as a result of the Olympics will now roll out across the nation as non-Olympic cuts hit.

The Department of Culture, Media and Sport is understood to have reached a settlement with the Treasury that will see about 30 per cent cut from its annual £1.6 billion budget. However London 2012 will  escape significant cuts to its £9.3 billion budget, and is expected to have its remaining contingency fund left largely untouched, partly out of necessity and partly expediency.

It is claimed that most of the major Olympic contracts have been awarded, so it is too late for major savings. The games are predicted to be completed with surplus contingency of £700 million. However the DCMS and the Olympic bodies have argued that is politically better to leave the contingency in place rather than take it back, and risk having to pay out in the event of an unforeseen crisis in the project.

The cuts to the DCMS budget will make it unlikely that the government can deliver on its promise of an abiding participation legacy from the London 2012 Olympics.
Sports minister Hugh Robertson will prioritise protecting funding for elite athletes in the run up to the London Games, and grass roots initiatives and projects run by UK Sport and Sport England’s will be cut.
Shadow Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell who told the nation the Olympics would only cost £3bn when it was nearer £10bn now claims she is concerned school sports initiatives will be hit by the cuts. So clearly nothing to do with her.

The details of the Olympic funding will not be announced by the Government on Wednesday. The cuts are likely to be made public on Thursday.

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Glastonbury Cancelled Due To London Olympics

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Glastonbury 2012 has been cancelled due to the London Olympics procuring all available portable toilets in the south of England. In addition, the organisers have also been told that all the 600 strong police force which patrols the event will also be redirected to patrol the Olympics.

Michael Eavis spoke of a price hike in 2012 for any spare toilets due to their scarcity, which would also inevitably lead to problems. “I can see it getting very expensive,” he said. “So we looked at the timing and thought that a year off seemed sensible.”

Sadly, yet somewhat unsurprisingly, the Glastonbury Festival has become another casualty of the ever increasing collateral damage inflicted by the controversial 2012 Olympic event.

For the full article see Live4Ever.

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50,000 promised Olympic Jobs becomes 70,000 unpaid McVolunteers

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No Jobs only McVolunteers

No Jobs only McVolunteers

Countless employers are now facing the problem of dealing with twenty three working days without key employees come 2012.  The deadline to volunteer for the Olympics is the 27th of October, 2010. The London 2012 Olympics Organising Committee (LOCOG) have stated that 70,000 voluntary positions need to be filled, but more than 100,000  people have already applied. The voluntary roles consist of general and specialised positions, from desk staff, events stewards and drivers. Volunteers must work for a minimum of 10 days for the Games, and 20 for the Paralympic Games. Training is also mandatory for all participants.

There are also a further 8000 positions to be filled for the role of “London Ambassadors”, which would involve helping the vastly overstated and questionable increase of tourists and visitors in 2012 find their way around the city.

For more information visit.

These voluntary positions have been the source of much controversy. Back in 2007 London’s Employment and Skills Taskforce and the London Development Agency (LDA) were talking of the Olympics creating up to 50,000 new jobs in the Lower Lea Valley. Dee Doocey, chair of the Committee for Economic Development, Culture, Sport, and Tourism, the leading committee on the London Assembly for scrutinising the Olympics, commented on the announcement of a new ‘Living Wage’ for London of £7.20 an hour:

“The Mayor and Seb Coe signed an ‘Ethical contract’ with London Citizens before winning the Olympics, promising a Living Wage for everyone involved. Yet to date, no Living Wage has been included in the contracts allocated and Seb Coe told the London Assembly that ‘any of the issues about a living wage is a consideration, not a condition’. This is of great concern because LOCOG will be letting contracts for all the traditionally low paid jobs such as catering and cleaning. As for local businesses exploiting the games, as Coe had suggested, it is more likely that existing businesses will be endangered.”

The “workers” will be given Macdonalds meals and bus travel for the day, but are not even allowed free tickets for the events. To read more on this click here, here, and here.

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ETOA claims Olympics are bad for tourism

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The European Tour Operators Association (ETOA) has warned that the 2012 Olympic games would be harmful to Britain’s tourism industry. The ETOA has published research from cities who previously hosted the Olympic Games, which shows it has a “profoundly disruptive” effect on local tourism. They describe the official estimates for the number of visitors as “exaggerated”. The association warned: “Normal tourist businesses suffer during the Games period . . . The region around the Games can suffer more than the host city . . . The impression that everything will be overcrowded and overpriced blights a region . . . [and] these difficulties are exacerbated by exaggerated claims of the benefits derived from the Games.”

Meanwhile Boris Johnson is drumming up a further 8000 voluntary positions for the role of “London Ambassadors”, which would involve helping the vast increase of tourists and visitors in 2012 to find their way around the city. So no paid tourism jobs there.

They can perhaps help shepherd the 70,000 unpaid volunteers in McDonald’s regalia.

Job anyone?

For more information click here

For more information on 2012 controversy click here

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The loss of a British Institution looms

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An important symbol of South London and a key feature of the city’s skyline, the Battersea Power Station, has been left to decay for more than twenty years. Created by Gilbert Scott in 1935, the building has slowly rotted away after both station’s A and B were  decommissioned in 1975 and 1983 respectively. The much-loved monument is listed on the English Heritage’s “Buildings at Risk” register.

For full article please click here.

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Chief organiser of Commonwealth Games promotes his services

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Suresh Kalmadi, chief organiser of Commonwealth Games, has offered up his services to the 2012 Olympics. He claims the games in Delhi have been such an outstanding success that 2012 would greatly benefit from his input. Despite last-minute worries about the unstable construction work of the Athlete’s village, “unfit for human habitation”; Kalmadi argues the event has shown the world that a Third World country is a perfectly capable host.

The Commonwealth Games were intended to showcase India’s economic rise to the world, but it soon became bogged-down in incompetence and infighting. Its defenders have proclaimed that the opening ceremony was enough to silence critics, although some have stated the games have suffered from poor ticket sales and general lack of interest from the public. Kalmadi denies all criticism and insists it has been an unqualified achievement.

For more information on this story click here

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Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society Pump House demolition objection letter

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Profiting from demolishing our heritage

Malcolm Tucker of the Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society has written a letter objecting to the demolition of the grade II listed Victorian Pump House situated next to the Battersea Power Station.

The letter is both a detailed inventory of the archaeological and cultural value of the site that “developer” REO/Treasury Holdings want to raze to the ground in the name of making more money, and a demolition of the arguments for demolition in the recently circulated Planning Policy Statement 5 Assessment, prepared by Donald Insall Associates Ltd and dated September 2010.

Matthew Tucker observes that:

….their arguments for demolition of the building centre on PPS5 Policy HE9.2, and on the wording of listing description and the stated conclusion of the CgMs report that the building has ‘limited architectural, artistic or archaeological significance’. We believe that the building does have architectural and archaeological significance and that its demolition would deny future generations an appreciation of the transition of the Cornish engine from mine pump to waterworks engine. Further, we point out below that it should be possible to incorporate the conserved building within the scheme.

We may add that since CgMs prepared their Historic Building Record in 2005, the original drawings and other records of the building have been studied in detail by Colin Thom of English Heritage Survey of London, corroborating and expanding upon this society’s own researches.

The letter outlines 5 main points:

1) Function and fabric as contributors to the significance of the building.
2) Assessment of architectural significance
3) Significance of artefacts
4) Structural condition
5) Accommodating the building within the development

If you would like to read the  letter in full you can download it here:

If you would like to add your voice to the objections write to: Bob Leuty BLeuty@wandsworth.gov.uk

Please also send spectacle a copy info@spectacle.co.uk so we can be sure your objection is circulated.

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The Delhi Eye – A Symbol of Innocence and Inexperience?

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DSC_0152

With the Commonwealth Games slipping into their final days in Delhi, other construction efforts are rushing for completion in a similar manner. Located away from central Delhi, in Kalindi Kunj gardens on the banks of the Yamuna River, the 45m wheel aspires to evoke comparisons with its more famous London counterpart. However, like much of the city, it remains unfinished and unused, with it’s location unknown to most locals and with the RP20 entrance fee to the gardens likely to prevent it being enjoyed by all levels of society.

It does boast one feature that the London Eye doesn’t – a VIP pod equipped (as rumour has it) with a minibar and a television. In case the view from the top proves underwhelming.

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Unexploded bomb could lie underneath Olympic Stadium

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The Olympic Delivery Authority has dismissed claims that there could be an unexploded bomb lying beneath its Stratford stadium.

However, according to Government records, a German bomb dropped in a tip on the exact site of the stadium during the Blitz.
Records exist of bombings during the war, which state that a large hole was left in a rubbish shoot at the refuse site after an air-raid. Despite several searches throughout the 1940s, no bomb was uncovered at the site.

A report by weapons company BAE Systems for the Government in 2007 concluded that explosive material must lie beneath the site of the stadium of the intensity of air raids in the area during the war.

A spokesman for the ODA said that more than 3,000 searches for unexploded bombs had been carried out across the Olympic Park, including the Marshgate Lane stadium.

For full article click here.

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New Nine Elms development no more than a Battery of Tower Blocks

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Architect Keith Garner is voicing strenuous objections to the so-called ‘regeneration opportunity’ at Nine Elms in Battersea. Wandsworth council and developer St James are proposing the construction of tower blocks of 16,000 new homes, along with shops, offices and a tube extension. He went to see an interactive model of the area, along with videos and other visual displays at the exhibition at Battersea Studios, off Silverthorne Road.

Model of proposed Nine Elms development

Garner, who is also a member of the Battersea Power Station Community Group, is objecting to what he views as a “deeply unattractive project,” on three grounds: the destruction of views, especially of Westminster Palace, the disappearance of promised open green spaces and thirdly, the nonsensical positioning of the new northern line extension from Kennington.

To allow a battery of tower blocks to be built at the east of the area towards Vauxhall would ruin the ordinary public’s views upstream from Waterloo and Westminster and downstream from Battersea and Chelsea, points out Garner, apart from residents and tenants of the new development. Millbank Tower, now a Grade II listed building, was consciously designed to replicate the proportions of Victoria Tower nearby. However, its presence should not be used merely to justify yet another “collection of banal residential and office towers,” which are likely to spoil the backdrop of the Palace of Westminster looking down Whitehall.

Model shows planned cluster of new tower blocks

The architect also noted that the linear park ‘green swathe’ that was such a redeeming feature and justification for the project had vanished from the model! He said it was clear from speaking to Wandsworth Borough Council (WBC) staff at the exhibition that the developers were just ignoring the requirement to have a large green open space and that they had no real power to make them provide it. “Shouldn’t the areas designated as green swathe have been compulsorily purchased or handed over by the developers to WBC?” he remonstrated.

In addition, there was a missed opportunity to move Nine Elms Lane back from the river to the approximate line of the lamented green swathe, as the narrow sites between Nine Elms Lane and the river are so pinched and uncomfortable. This would enable larger sites adjacent to the river and the possibility of more substantial riverside public space than the customary 10 metre wide riverside walk. Moving the road may or may not be a good idea, but could at least have been been investigated. Bigger blocks should be up towards Wandsworth Road, not right by the river.

Finally, the proposed Northern Line extension from Kennington seemed to be purely to serve these development sites, and was not integrated properly at all with east Battersea. “Why, for instance, does the terminus at Battersea Power Station stop about 200 metres short of Battersea Park station? Why, indeed, are there no plans to refurbish the listed Battersea Park Station?” enquires Garner. “There is no public benefit to the existing communities of east Battersea from having the Northern Line, yet almost all the S106 money will go to pay for it rather than real benefits such as upgrading Battersea Park and Queenstown Road stations from their current squalid state, or other real public benefits such as new public park on the river or a 50 metre swimming pool.”

Garner concludes: “The overall impression the exhibition gave me was that this was just another developers’ carve-up like the Guinness site and the riverbank from Wandsworth to Battersea in general, with very little public benefit and a great deal of harm. If this ‘unrivalled opportunity for businesses’ means doing so much damage in an area beside the river and close to the city centre, then the council needs to re-examine its priorities. I would prefer these sites to be left fallow until more civilised and intelligent proposals come forward.”

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