Legacy? No way!

Stephen Norris writing in Property Week:

Olympic legacy is a recipe for disaster

The start of the 2008 Beijing Olympics is only a fortnight away. After the controversy over Tibet and the infamous global torch-carrying fiasco, the games themselves run the risk of being an anti-climax, but we’ll cheer Team GB as they try to improve on our Athens medal tally. Best of luck to them but, after Beijing, we know we’re next up.

The curtain rises in London on 27 July 2012 and there’s no point in asking whether the world would mind if we put it off by a year. That’s it – the ultimate drop dead date – and as of now, with 1,460 days to go – it’s edging ever closer.

Olympic preparations are a real stretch for any city. Beijing is predictably ready. It even claims to have cleaned up the air, although it will be interesting to go back in a year’s time and see how permanent that is. But four years ago, the concrete around some of the Athens facilities was hardly dry for the opening fireworks and there was a real risk of disaster.

So are we set to make global fools of ourselves and replicate the Millennium Dome, or can we show the Chinese that a healthy free market can do the job even better than legions of the People’s Liberation Army?

Coherent vision

The official version is that we’re on track.

Work on the Olympic stadium, which is the centrepiece of the Olympic Park in the Lea Valley, started three months early.

Carillion and Igloo will take charge of the vast press centre, which will house 20,000 journalists – almost one per athlete.

Balfour Beatty is building the Zaha Hadid-designed aquatic centre. Four of the five main projects are now well up and running.

Lend Lease has had problems financing the Olympic Village, which will yield 3,500 homes after the games but, if necessary, the government will underwrite the cost because time is now critical.

I will stick my neck out and say that everything I hear and see tells me we will be ready in time for the games.

That does, however, leave two big questions. One is out-turn cost. The first pathetically inadequate estimate from the government was £3bn. We are now officially up to £9bn, but expect the final bill to be closer to £11bn.

The second issue is legacy. You don’t spend all those billions to put on a month-long sporting event, however good the TV revenue is. London 2012 has always been about turning a desolate swathe of east London into a vibrant, healthy and attractive place to live, work and enjoy life.
That is where I get unhappy. I don’t yet see any coherent vision for life after the games. The Olympic Village might suit the athletes, but just producing one- and two-bedroom homes out of it is a recipe for social disaster.

Where are the four- and five-bedroom family homes with gardens and garages? Where are the shops, health centres, primary school and pubs that any community desperately needs? Why was West Ham not the obvious stadium tenant? If not them, who will save it from weeds and decay?

The truth is that the real thinking about the Olympics has yet to start. We’ll deliver the games all right. But whether London gains or loses post-2012 is still an open question.

Postscript :
Steven Norris is an adviser to London mayor Boris Johnson on transport and development