Lower Lea Valley Regeneration

11,000 athletes will compete in 300 events over 12 days

20,000 journalists will arrive to cover the event

Nine million tickets will be sold

500,000 spectators will move across London every day during the Games

Staging the Games will involve 63,000 people

As I'm sure that you are all aware, the host city for the 2012 Games will be  London. London had to overcome stiff

competition in the form of Paris, New York, Moscow and Madrid in its bid to get the Games.

The Official Olympics website says

"London 2012 will strive to provide conditions that enable the athletes to compete in an environment of excellence,

 friendship and enjoyment. Fifty per cent of competitors will live only minutes from their venues and will never have

to leave the security of the Olympic Park, while a further 30% will be only 20 minutes from their venues.

After London 2012, London will possess some of the finest sports facilities for hosting national and international events.

This will enable London to create the London Olympic Institute, a world-class institution for sport, culture and the

environment, which will provide facilities and services for elite athletes, as well as encouraging participation in sport

 well after the 2012 Games are over."

above pic courtesy of David Williams

The epicentre of London's plans is the Lower Lea Valley in the east, where the main Olympic stadium,

aquatics centre, velodrome and athletics village  will be built. At the heart of the campaign will be the new Olympic stadium

and village around Pudding Mill and Marshgate Lanes in Stratford, east London.

At least 3000 new jobs and 4,000 homes will be generated in the surrounding areas, giving a much needed facelift to a

borough with one of the highest crime and unemployment rates in the country. Plans to revitalize London's East End for the games

included the compulsory purchase of several homes and businesses by the government. The purchased buildings would be

demolished to make  way for Olympic venues and infrastructure improvements.

 The press have made it known that the area is currently made up of  industrial estates, dumping grounds and polluted rivers

though despite all this the area the area is also known for its network of waterways (the Bow Backs Rivers) and is  full of  wildlife.

These rivers are one of the quietest place in London to walk and while a cleanup of some parts would be encouraged you cant help

wondering if the regeneration will sanitize the area and remove its character.

The Lower Lea Valley has been designated as a Site of Metropolitan Importance for Nature Conservation by GLA's Ecology Unit.

It has European status as a migration route for birds. In spite of this evidence of the Lower Lee Valley’s importance to wildlife,

the developers characterize the Lower Lea valley as ‘corridors of dereliction’. Construction will mean years of disruption and the

loss of some of the Valley’s nature reserves. Ecologist Annie Chipchase says ‘How can we be sure that kingfishers will move back?

 You can’t just put every bird in a box and return it after the Games’. (Guardian Feb 16th 2005). There is much emphasis given to

the benefits, in the long term at least, for the River Lea. It is to be hoped that the teal, tufted duck and gadwall which over-winter

on the River Lea in Hackney, and the resident heron, cormorant and kingfishers recognize that the disruption is only ‘temporary’

and eventually will return to the Lower Lea Valley.

The Olympic Stadium, which will host the track and field athletics events as well as the opening and closing ceremonies:

the rear of the site at the junction of the River Lea & City Mill River which is on an overgrown bank which at the moment is quite

innaccessible. The main entrance to the Stadium will be on Marshgate Lane where there is currently a business park (which will

obviously be demolished)

Multi Sport Arena Site

Four indoor arenas, which will host basketball, volleyball, handball, and the fencing and shooting disciplines of the modern pentathlon

will be built on land off the A12 in Hackney Wick.

Half of the site is the Arena Field Recreation Ground and the other is an industrial estate which is based around the site of the recently

demolished Hackney Stadium

"The drain on the National Lottery will take a big toll on smaller scale projects all over the country, costing £64 million per annum up to

2012, including existing sports facilities. Charities anticipate significant reductions as corporations redirect money to sponsorship of the

games." Asian Tribune

The Aquatics Centre will host swimming, diving and water polo:

The pics above were taken in late 2004 prior to demolition work. The pics below taken in late 2005 show some preparation work has

already commenced. This site is the first evidence of any work for the Olympics, perhaps because an aquatic centre was going to be

built here regardless of the outcome of the Olympic bid.

The Velopark comprising a velodrome and a BMX track, and hosting most of the cycling events:

The Baseball Arena:

 

The Hockey Centre, will comprise 15,000 and 5,000 seat arenas:

The site above left is currently used by construction traffic for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. The Hockey Centres

will be situated in the far left of the picture. The picture is of the Channelsea River and the Hockey Centre will be

adjacent to the right of this photograph. (this hockey site was v difficult to get pics!)

The Olympic Press and Broadcast Centres.

East Marsh Car & Coach Park

The Olympic plans include coach parks for vehicles required to provide a service between Olympic facilities and other locations.

The coach park sites have been chosen to provide end points from major arterial routes in and around London. The bid’s stated

intention is that "immediately after the 2012 Olympic Games, East Marsh would be restored back to playing fields as it currently

is with the addition of new facilities."A  pedestrian land bridge will be built to connect East Marsh to the Olympic Precinct during

the Games which shall be retained as a legacy for Hackney and Waltham Forest.

The Hackney Marsh User Group say The land bridge and Car Park at  East Marsh would destroy a fine row of 25 ash trees and

many mature trees on East Marsh, including pear trees, willows, many varieties of ash, and black poplar trees, including several

110 year old rare native black poplar trees. Therefore it will be impossible to restore the field after 2012 to how "it currently is"

and the wildlife that the trees currently support. Also once its been concreted all over will they really return it all to grass? Will

those in charge post -2012  remember and honour commitments made by their predecessors?

The football pitches of Hackney Marshes are an early playing grounds for such sporting icons as Terry Venables, Bobby Moore,

David Beckham and Sol Campbell.

http://www.hackneyenvironment.org.uk

Judith writes: "There is a community of circus and performing artists living and

working in the industrial site at the epicentre of the Olympic

village. Tony Blair launched the Olympic bid from the (lottery

funded, expensively restored) Royal Opera House, Jude Kelly (director

of the South Bank Centre) was in charge of the cultural component of

the bid, and there is supposed to be something called the Cultural

Olympiad, although no-one seems to know what that means.

So naturally, and remembering that the trapeze artists were the only

good part of the Dome experience, these performers are to be

cherished, right? Offered a tall-ceilinged rehearsal space and

guaranteed to be rehoused within easy reach of public transport and

central London? Well, no, in fact Jude Kelly couldn't even be

bothered to answer a letter about the community when it was first

threatened with removal. Their landlord has been handsomely bought

out but that doesn't help the performers. They are valued about as

highly as the wildlife or the allotment holders that are careless

enough to get in the way of the athletes and the richly-besuited

Olympic fixers. Eviction is scheduled for next month (June).

Olympics! Bah! Give them back to Greece, or Paris, or anywhere -

better still, just stop the whole bloody bandwagon."

The Olympic Village (Site pictures to follow) - accommodation for all athletes and accredited officials (some 17,320 in total).

This is currently the Clays lane Housing Cooperative. The site currently houses 500 single people ( its one of the only Housing

provisions set up for housing single people in the Uk) It is due for complete demolition to make way for the athletes accommodation.

The tenants are all being offered alternative accommodation via housing associations and when this place has been demolished

with it will go one of the only socially oriented provisions for single people every really tried in London

Taken from The Observer Sept 2005

"The Observer has obtained a letter from a senior civil servant to London mayor Ken Livingstone in which £1 billion of

government money is pledged that ministers had not previously revealed would be forthcoming. The letter appears to

 contradict the government's insistence that 2012 would not involve any central funding and would be paid for entirely

 from lottery receipts and a levy on the capital's council taxpayers.London 2012 sources admit privately that some of the

 costs of staging the world's biggest sporting event were deliberately under-estimated or disguised during the bid process."

From the BBC Oct 2005

"The Homerton University Hospital, designated as the main hospital for the Olympics, is in line for a series of upgrades along

with its partner hospitals - the nearby Whipps Cross, University College London Hospital, Barts and the Royal London NHS

Trust, Newham University Hospital and Barking, Havering and Redbridge NHS Trust - a package worth £1.37 billion ($2.4 billion).

Primary care - GP and community nurse care - is also getting a planned cash injection of £128.9m."

From Asian Times March 2006

"Assurances from the government that the 2012 Olympic Games will help regenerate the socially deprived East End of London fly

in the face of reality.

Taking a broad and sober look at the recent history of the games, promises of regeneration appear hopelessly unrealistic. Inevitably

the public will foot the bill whilst corporations and property developers will rake in bumper profits, all under the approving aegis of the

IOC. Early in 2004, IOC vice-president Kim Un-Yong was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in jail on corruption charges. Thirteen

members of the IOC were expelled in the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics bid after investigations into bribe taking.

The giant sports stadiums are ideal for hosting large scale tournaments, but of very limited use for the local needs of the East London

community. The legacy of underused facilities is unlikely to be any different compared to the experiences of Athens or Sydney. Athens

 was saddled with a site almost as derelict afterwards as it was before. The Sydney games of 2000 failed to sustain interest, with

 visitor numbers declining for the following three years."

Any places you think should be on this site? Let me know!

Also info (however trivial) or stories/personal memories  on any of  the buildings would

be appreciated.

or make a donation to derelictlondon: