I recently received a kick-ass comment from a friend of mine named Stuart Murphy. He had some insight to share on the development of the London Olympics and how it’s affecting community here. Thought I’d give him a little shout-out and repost his comment here. Thanks Stu!

From what I can gather through working on an employment project across Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Newham (3 of the 5 host boroughs) over the last few years very few local people seem to be benefiting even from the short term construction boom. To my mind, those construction jobs aren’t being done by local people to the extent thats been promised. And thats not meant in the Nationalistic ‘they’re all Polish immigrants’ sense.

Anecdotally it seems that contractors have bussed people in from wherever, to the extent of even giving them fake local addresses in order to skew the stats and not get too much heat from the Olympic Delivery Authority for not employing locals. Not that there would be too much heat, as the targets for employing locals appear only to be aspirational. Its unclear that Section 106 Agreements (see link for definition: http://www.idea.gov.uk/idk/core/page.do?pageId=71631) are in place or being enforced, so there’s basically no accountability, and therefore no real incentive to hire local.

For instance only in the last week it has emerged that there are only 150 apprentices working on the site, and only 1 from Hackney. Its a 500 acre site, and covered in construction workers.

Here’s a link or two:

• Article about low numbers of apprentices: http://www.hackneycitizen.co.uk/2010/03/10/only-one-hackney-apprentice-on-olympics-site/




• Link to a report by the snappily titled All Party Urban Development Group about regeneration projects creating local jobs: http://www.centreforcities.org/assets/files/APUDG-BuildingLocalJobsFINAL.pdf




• Also, awareness raising network on issues relating to the London Olympics. Its billed as a network of individuals (which it may be) but there’s fairly strong themes, politically, running through the articles: http://www.gamesmonitor.org.uk/

London Olympic Park construction equipment, by renaissancechambara (via Flickr).

Plan for London Olympics 2012 Village Photo: ecofriend.org

In 2012, London will be hosting the Summer Olympics, “the greenest games to date” according to the Olympic Delivery Authority chief executive, David Higgins.

London authorities are gearing up to win the gold in sustainability, with claims of cutting carbon emissions, lighting a carbon neutral Olympic Flame, using recycled materials and cleaning up the brownfield upon which athletes will compete. But that’s not the only legacy the city hopes to accomplish. London is also looking to implement a robust social agenda to accompany the physical regeneration projects. As the Strategic Regeneration Framework report hopefully proposes:

The true legacy of 2012 is that within 20 years the communities who host the 2012 Games will have the same social and economic chances as their neighbours across London.

London Olympics Photo: gadiss.com

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