The Road to 2012

The delivery of the stadiums and infrastructure at Olympic park is 88 per cent complete with more than 3.5 million tickets sold. (#1yeartogo).

The biggest failure from the locals’ viewpoint has been the budget blow-out.

Despite UK Sports Minister Hugh Robertson claiming the games will be delivered under budget, that’s only after it was revised and increased FOUR-FOLD from $3.5 billion  to $14 billion back in 2008 !! ('We Are In For The Money! And It's All Thanks To Gordon Brown", London Evening Standard)

The British tax-payers are rightly expecting big bangs for their bucks…but what about the promise that London’s impoverished East End would be revitalised.? 

The London Borough of Newham, one of 5 boroughs bordering the main Olympic site, has a population of 240,000 but almost half of its residents are listed below the poverty line - double the rate for the rest of London. 

Sir Robin Wales, the Mayor of Newham has criticised the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) for not putting enough effort into generating local employment, training and apprenticeships.

The Westfield Stratford City shopping centre, which is adjacent to Olympic Park, will be Europe’s largest when it opens in September. It will provide up to 8,500 jobs, but the problems faced by areas such as Newham and Tower Hamlets in particular are much bigger than one shopping centre, however large, can fix.  

You only need to look at the graffiti-stained areas and derelict buildings within a javelin-throw of Olympic Park, and you will soon realise the scale of the problems facing London’s East End in the midst of the GFC. 

When the British Olympic Association announced last month it had done a deal to enter a GB football team -- including players from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland -- these countries reacted angrily, denying any deal had been struck and collectively opposed the idea. 

The Games are widely seen as London’s Games and not those of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. 

London has always attracted jealous glances from the outside, and only if it hosts an Olympics as successful as Sydney’s Games in 2000 will it receive glowing tributes from British taxpayers in Glasgow, Belfast and Cardiff.