Tag Archives: Olympics

Westfield Stratford bottleneck forces reduction in Olympic day tickets

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The new Westfield shopping centre at Stratford has already seen millions of people walk through its doors. As the only way to get in to the Olympic 2012 site those numbers are only likely to increase. Good for business, bad for sports fans.

In what seems like a rather large oversight in planning, it has recently been reported that crowd flow analysis at the centre has shown that the ‘Olympic gateway’ has already produced a potentially dangerous bottleneck. This is even before the Olympics has started. It’s only going to get worse.

For those sports fans that were unable to get tickets to the actual events, day or “Rover” tickets will be available. These tickets will allow general access to the Olympic park where events can be seen on large screens. Due to concerns over the bottleneck, the number of day tickets have now been reduced.

Controlling access to the Olympics in this way, forced “footfall”, obviously felt like a good business plan for Westfield and their Olympic friends and too good to miss, unlike the Olympics for all those without tickets.

Westfield wins Olympic Gold

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Coca-Cola break Olympic Pledge to Public Transport

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Soft-drinks company Coca-Cola have been accused of ‘breaking the Olympic spirit’, following another recent controversy over transport in London during the 2012 Games.

Guests of Coca-Cola, one of the official sponsors of the London 2012 Olympics, will be transported to and from the games in Stratford by VIP buses, it has been revealed. As a result, they are now being accused of breaking the Games’ pledge to encourage those attending the event to rely on public transport.

Whilst it would take just 20 minutes on public transport for guests to commute from their 5-star rooms at the Langham Hotel to the Olympic Stadium in Stratford, guests of Coca-Cola will instead be travelling on VIP buses, driving up to Euston Road and joining the Olympic Route Network.

The Olympic Lanes were initially created for the quick transportation of competitors and employees. Yet sponsors of the games, including Coca-Cola, will also be allowed to take advantage of these specially created routes, even though the majority of their guests will be attending as spectators.

In addition to this, parking for residents around the Langham Hotel will be restricted during the games, in order to make way for the VIP buses.

Whilst London commuters are being urged to avoid making any unnecessary trips into the capital during the Games and employers are being urged to increase the number of Londoners working from home , guests of Coca-Cola and other Olympic sponsors will be able to enjoy VIP transportation.

“Coca-Cola will benefit from special measures during [the] Games … the rest of us are being asked to make sacrifices. It is a blatant affront to the Olympic spirit.”

As Simon Jenkins says, ‘Olympics VIPs and their cronies […] can cruise through London unimpeded by traffic lights, white vans, taxis, cyclists, zebra crossings or ordinary Londoners, who will be shoved into the gutter like medieval peasants’

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West Ham Stadium Deal Collapse to Cost Taxpayers Millions

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Tax-payers will now find themselves paying a multi-million pound bill, as West Ham’s plans to buy the Olympic Stadium in Stratford have fallen through.

West Ham were in line to purchase the stadium after the 2012 Games, with the support of a £40 million fund from Newham Council. However, rival bidders Tottenham Hotspur argued that the fund was an ‘unfair advantage’ and claimed that West Ham were receiving ‘illegal state aid’, sparking a legal battle between the two teams.  Challenges from Leyton Orient football club and an anonymous complaint to the European Commission also created a great deal of uncertainty around the deal. As a result Newham Council has now said they no longer want to proceed.

‘…the Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC) received a letter from Newham Council yesterday saying because of the uncertainty that they no longer wanted to proceed’

The stadium is now to be state-owned instead and will be rented out to football clubs, rather that sold. Boris Johnson and ministers are claiming that this is the best solution, with the greatest long-term results for taxpayers:

”…We’ve come up with a very good solution to keep it in public hands and rent it to football clubs… that will be a very good deal”

Yet, taxpayers will now have to meet the contribution that would have be made by West Ham and Newham Council towards the conversion of the stadium, resulting in a multi-million pound bill. They may also find themselves paying for any annual losses that the stadium makes – a fate that has been met at previous Olympic sites.

Some experts say it will turn out to be the most expensive venue of its kind in the world- more debt Legacy.

The Olympic Park Legacy Company will now have to begin looking for a new tenant to rent the stadium. It has been confirmed that West Ham will be bidding again, but it is yet to be made clear whether renting the stadium will turn out to be a better deal for the East London football team.

 

 

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Olympian battle to get London’s transport fit for the Games…

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A guaranteed budget of £6.5bn has been set aside to get London’s transport network up to speed in time for the Olympic Games next year. Thanks to the Games, this budget is also protected during present austerity measures.

With an estimated eight million visitors expected in London during July and August 2012, Graham Stephens, the co-ordination manager for the Olympics for Transport for London said that transport was marked as a potential problem right from the start: “The first advisers for the London bid helped us a lot when they stressed right at the beginning of the process that transportation was a major issue.”

Speaking about the legacy, Stephens pointed out that the transport system after the Olympics will be “significantly reinvigorated.” In the meantime, Londoners continue to face delays and line closures while the transport system goes through its upgrade.

For the full article click here

 

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Debt-The true Olympic legacy…continued

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Further to our earlier post, the Future Communities blog  points out that the recent riots “diverted attention from the  decision by the Government and the Mayor’s Office to reject a £1bn bid by the Wellcome Trust to transform the Olympic Park into a science and technology hub.”

Instead of creating up to 7000 new jobs, turning the Olympic village into a new research and innovation facility, its sale to Qatari Diar and Delancey Estates, the two property development companies who have recently acquired it for £557m (with a staggering £275m loss) is a shortsighted one.

Unemployment in the east end boroughs of London are among the highest in London and the prospect of creation thousands of jobs for local residents is yet another wasted opportunity.

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The true Olympic legacy: the debt starts here

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The Olympic village has been sold to the property arm of Qatar’s Royal family at a loss of £275m.

In alliance with British developer Delancey Estates, the two companies will be responsible for just over half of the existing 2,818 homes and for the development of a further 2,000 units on new land.

The partnership “creates the first private-sector residential fund of more than 1,000 homes to be owned and directly managed as an investment.”

For more on this story click here

 

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How to sponsor the Olympics in 4 easy steps…

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Calling all Olympic 2012 sponsors!

Did you know that London can have that glossy just-out-of-the-showroom clean city look in four easy steps?

Consumers Spectators will get the chance to experience that special Olympic “feeling” by seeing your products on billboards all the way to each sporting venue. Not only that, with careful planning you will be guaranteed (yes, guaranteed!) maximum exposure in all other parts of the capital.

Here’s all you need to do:

1. Seek out people wearing clothes advertising rival products and either get them to wear them inside out or use masking tape to cover up the offending image so they’re not spotted on TV.

2. Rename well-known buildings  if they are sponsored by a rival brand (think O2 Arena.)

3. Book up as much billboard space as possible in and around the capital so your competitors can’t get a look-in.

4. Remove all of your rivals drinks and food from all “Olympic family” establishments so only your products can be consumed.

Simples!

To find out more click here.

 

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Olympic legacy – a potential disaster?

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Richard Caborn, the sports minister at the time London won the Olympic bid, will speak today raising his concerns over the potential failure of the Olympics’ sporting legacy.

In his keynote speech at the annual meeting of the Sports and Recreation Trust Association in Birmingham, Caborn will elaborate on his comments, quoted in the Guardian today, that there was a “danger of failing completely,” adding that there needed to be a “major change of direction in the strategy on this if the disastrous decline experienced by many of the sports is to be reversed.”

The latest quarterly figures from Sport England show that the target to increase the number of people playing sport three or more time a week by one million by 2013 is a long way off the mark with a more modest increase of just under 110 thousand from 2007-08.

Click here for the full article

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Olympic Equestrian Events, is Greenwich Park the right venue?

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Computer simulation of the view from the Wolfe statue created by Greenwich Landscape Artists

Computer simulation of the view from the Wolfe statue created by Greenwich Landscape Artists

No to Greenwich Olympic Equestrian Events (NOGOE) is an ongoing campaign for the  2012 Olympic equestrian events to be moved to a more suitable venue.

The members of this community action group are extremely worried about the impact the Games will have on the Park and the local community. Despite the promises made by the  Olympic organisers to repair any damage caused during the Games, the community says the park is too small and features hundred year old trees that will have to be “pruned” to allow riders to pass during the competitions and that, according to the campaigners, will eventually be damaged.

Following a test event that took place last July, Derrick Spurr, Project Manager for the Games, said he was “absolutely confident” that within a few months the park will start to green up again very quickly after the end of the Olympics.

Sue McNeil, NOGOE’s spokeswoman, described the preparations for the test event as “a rape of the park – it’s covered in sand and railings and tractors. One or two trees have had severe pruning. It makes us suspicious of what will happen next year.”

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UK’s Olympic win could leave London tourism a major loser

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The official agency behind promoting tourism for London has admitted that the 2012 Olympic Games could lead to a lull in visitors to the capital next year, which may have a damaging impact on the UK’s stuttering economic recovery.

London & Partners has acknowledged there “could be a problem” with people not wanting to come to London over fears, such as over-crowded transport, a lack of, or high prices for, hotel rooms, and the capital resembling a building site, from 1 January until the Olympics end on 27 August.

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