London After The 2012 Olympics
UK Government Planning Eco-Friendly Olympic Sites in East London
Mar 20, 2008
The Olympic Delivery Authority, working to make London ready for the 2012 Olympics is already looking beyond the games, and recently unveiled plans for a 270 acre park to be built in east London on land currently being developed to host the July-August event.
News comes as the building of the Olympic Stadium in Stratford is scheduled to begin three months early, in May 2008. Decontamination work, cleaning the ground of remnants of the heavy industry once so prevalent in east London, as well as unexploded Second World War bombs has progressed faster than expected and organisers are aiming for a 2011 completion date.
Regenerating East London
The park, as yet un-named, will lie around the River Lea valley and will contribute towards the regeneration of part of east London, which has long lagged behind the theatres, galleries and museums found in the leafy West End. Indeed, George Hargreaves, the American behind the park's design hopes the park will be "east London's equivalent to Hyde Park". The regeneration of certain inner city areas is now part and parcel of holding the event (anticipated to cost the taxpayer up to £9 billion), with the Althletes' Village to be converted into apartments, and prime real estate surrounding the Olympic sites to be intensively developed once the athletes go home.
A Healthy and Eco-Friendly Park
The proposed design incorporates ambitious new ideas, with major themes being climate change and fighting obesity, two issues steadily gaining more and more media spotlight in Britain. Fitness trails, built-in outdoor exercise equipment, climbing walls and more conventionally (and many would argue more importantly), wide open spaces and goals for football kickabouts are all planned, while a 120 metre high wind turbine and a small biomass power station highlighting methods of cutting carbon emissions will also feature at the site. A concert field is also planned, with a capacity for 50,000 people.
A pdf of the site can be found here.
But Traffic Problems Loom for Central London
London's mayor Ken Livingstone who is currently fighting for re-election faces a glitch or two in making the Olympics themselves as green, however. The International Olympic Committee has put forward a request for space for three thousand extra cars and exclusive traffic lanes for their use to be made available for the Games, not to ensure smoother journeys to venues for spectators, but to allow their officials to be able "move from venue to venue, often at short notice" (BBC). With congestion already a major headache in the capital and only slowly declining due to charges levied on those who wish to drive in central London, opposition from the mayoral office is understandable: "There really is no case for it" said Livingstone. He is not alone in his scepticism, the proposals have provoked anger among the Green Party, and it's also unlikely Londoners stuck in midsummer traffic will appreciate watching a host of politicians, foreign dignitaries and corporate sponsors whiz by behind tinted windows
