Project 2012 - The Olympic Park

When it was first proposed that London bid for the Olympic Games in 2012, Londoners were unsure as to how much benefit it would really bring.

Despite the recent and relatively slight slump in house prices, the cost of housing in London has increased exponentially in recent years, even in the poorest boroughs in East London. The average cost of a home is now just under £350,000 (well above the £200,415 average for the remainder of the country). Tower Hamlets Housing Services have informed us that the average wait for a one bedroom flat is from 5 to 10 years; from 7 to 10 years for a two bedroom flat; and more than ten years for a family home. In a recent survey we conducted in Stepney Green and Mile End, 47% of the households say they want to move house because they are currently overcrowded. Official statistics show that more than 260,000 children in London live in homes without enough bedrooms. In some parts of London as many as one household in four is overcrowded.

And the problem is only getting worse: severe overcrowding in London increased by 60 per cent between the 1991 and 2001 censuses. In 2004 a government review concluded that there were strong links between overcrowding and particular health conditions, in both children and adults; including respiratory conditions, meningitis and helicobacter pylori which is a cause of stomach ulcers. The stress of sharing bedrooms and inadequate cooking, cleaning, and toilet facilities is well documented as a cause of tension between family members in overcrowded homes. In some circumstances, it can lead to a breakdown in family relationships and to homelessness for older ‘children’.

Grand gestures and big promises were made by the London Olympics bid team, who desperately wanted to get local people onside to back the bid. But after so many promises were broken during other large regeneration schemes – most notably that at Canary Wharf – there was no guarantee that the average person in East London was set to benefit from all the public money that it would no doubt cost.

As the only civic alliance in the capital capable of making it happen, London CITIZENS set about organising its members so that the people of east London could have a say in what was to come after the Games. In the months leading up to the bid in 2005, they made representations to the Mayor’s Office, the London Development Agency (LDA) and the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) and signed a historic agreement about what the people of east London would get in return for their support.

This letter is the official response agreeing to the proposals we set out.

Since 2005 we have seen London 2012 be declared the first ever Living Wage Olympics, with over 93% of everybody working on the site receiving the London Living Wage – £7.60 per hour as opposed to the national minimum wage of £5.80.

Training opportunities for young people through the Skills Academy and apprenticeships, as well as a pledge to help combat a lack of street safety through a City Safe Games are promises that have also been kept.

Yet today, five years on, there has not yet been any firm commitment to where and when the affordable homes delivered via a community land trust will be commissioned.