Olympic Torch ignores the East End

An account of the invisible torch going through Bow

The good citizens of E3 appeared to have forgotten that the torch was
passing through. But as four o’clock approached, and the buzz of
helicopters filled the sky overhead, a few headed down to Bow Road to
watch the flame go by. Many were of Chinese origin, here to watch a
potent symbol from the motherland passing along their local street.
The vicar was out with his camera, having set his bell ringers the
task of welcoming the flame to Bow (or maybe he just pressed a button
inside the tower, it was hard to be sure). And there were no
protesters whatsoever, not this far out of town. What could go wrong?
The road to the flyover suddenly cleared of traffic and a very large
number of police motorbikes zoomed past. And a van, and another van,
and the Coca Cola open-topped bus. Was the flame aboard? We didn’t
think so. Those grinning Samsung girls were next, keeping up their
professional act as they danced for a crowd who almost certainly
couldn’t afford a widescreen telly like the one on the float. And then
silence. Was that it?

Thankfully not. After a brief interlude of ordinary vehicles, the
empty road reappeared. Yet more police outriders whizzed by, as if
every motorcycle copper in the capital was having a whale of a time
breaking the speed limit in 10 different boroughs in one day. And then
a 4×4, and a couple of vans, and a single-decker red bus. I’d seen
this procession several times before, so I knew the single-decker was
just a support vehicle packed with bottles of Coke and Malvern Water.
More vans followed, and the TV crew lorry, and another single-decker
bus, and a luxury coach, and some more vans. Still we scanned the road
for sight of any open-topped vehicle that might be carrying a beaming
athlete waving a torch. None appeared, only a steady stream of very
normal looking traffic. It very slowly dawned on us, with a distinctly
sinking feeling, that the flame had already passed. Bugger. It must
have been concealed inside one of the unflagged single-deckers, by now
at least half a mile away on the road to Stratford. The vicar and I
shared a look, as if to say “pah!”, and walked away. Here we were, a
community on the very edge of the Olympic Zone, and the authorities
had sped by without acknowledging our existence or even attempting to
include us as part of the celebrations. I do hope that this isn’t a
sign of things to come in 2012, but I fear it might be.

From http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/

The Latest on the Clays Lane Estate

Clays Lane housing estate in Stratford was built in the 1970s and was Europe’s second largest purpose built housing cooperative consisting of 450 units.

It is the subject of a Compulsory Purchase Order by the London Development Agency to make way for the 2012 Olympic site.

All residents were promised equivalent, if not better, housing.

The following has been written by one of the remaining residents Julian Cheyne:

Clays Lane tenants are informed that the Government is becoming annoyed with the LDA and CBHA, our housing managers, because they have not yet cleared the Clays Lane estate. At a briefing yesterday Mr Blacker of the LDA said he thought the LDA would have to evict ‘a handful’ of tenants. We understand the idea is they should ‘get tough’ with the remaining tenants as if they are in some way being recalcitrant.

Why?
Tenants are not refusing to co-operate with the relocation process. No-one is barricading themselves into their houses.

Some tenants have not yet been made an offer of accommodation. It has been agreed they should receive three ‘reasonable’ offers with a right to appeal if they are dissatisfied.

The LDA has already gone back on its original promises and promises made by the Mayor of London about the quality of accommodation they would be offered.

The LDA has had since 2003 to prepare for the relocation of tenants but failed to keep any of the timelines it set out in the Fluid report. Staff were only appointed to supervise the relocation in July and November 2005.

Some tenants will have to make temporary moves because of the failure of the LDA to organise particular kinds of moves.

Tenants are much worse off in financial terms and have lost their community and amenities with inadequate compensation. Some have smaller properties than they had at Clays Lane. The LDA has promised to ‘sustain’ communities. This community has been demolished.

Tenants have warned of the likelihood of the programme not delivering on time. It is unfair they should carry the cost of the failures of others.

‘Getting tough’ rather than investing properly in making the programme work just makes eviction more likely.

Lammas Land Defence Committee: 1, London Development Agency: 0

The first set back for the Olympic games developments came on Wednesday evening at Waltham Forest Town Hall.

The LDA wanted to temporarily move the Manor Park allotment holders to Marsh Lane playing fields. As previous written about on this site, the allotment users are absolutely against any move.

The land proposed for the temporary allotments is part of the Lammas Land: land bequeathed to the commoners of Leyton by Alfred the Great.
Defence of the land erupted on August 1, 1892 when 2,000 men, women and children gathered to defend the encroachment on the area by a railway line. The tracks were torn up and in the resulting melee two local councillors were arrested by the police – obviously local councillors then were made of sterner stuff than todays pathetic breed!

Lammas Land users and the Manor Park allotment holders have come together on this issue – they do not want their local environment and communities destroyed only to be replaced by the gigantic Disney-style sports theme park that is to be home for the 2012 Olympics.

For further background information please read the following article on the Games Monitor site:
http://www.gamesmonitor.org.uk/node/167

The Lammas Land Defence Committee has released the following communiqué:

‘CELEBRATION 12 noon, Sunday, Marsh Lane
GOOD NEWS!

Last night the Borough of Waltham Forest’s planning committee turned down an application by the London Development Agency to fence off about a fifth of Marsh Lane Fields in Leyton to relocate allotment-holders (who don’t want to move!) from a lovely 85 year old site at Bully Point in Newham. The campaign against this was led by the Lammas Lands Defence Committee, with a lot of help from other interested groups in the borough.

We had already planned a rally on the marshes on Sunday before the announcement that last night’s planning committee meeting would be deciding the application, and we therefore propose to hold a PARTY on the fields. So bring party stuff – champers, ribbons, etc. – if there’s any snow we can build a snowman or have a snowball fight! And please bring polo mints, carrots or apples for the horses that graze there – they’ll appreciate it immensely this time of the year when it’s muddy and the grass doesn’t grow very fast.

THE PARTY WILL BE A GREAT OPPORTUNITY TO SOCIALISE AND NETWORK AND PLAN OUR NEXT MOVE!

This is the first real bloody nose the LDA have got over the Olympics, and there are planning applications due to come up soon in Hackney and Newham – a lot of people from those boroughs came to support our defence of the Leyton Lammas Lands last night and we should now work together with them to help where we can with the ongoing evictions and demolition at Clays Lane housing estate and the threats to Hackney South Marsh.

If you don’t feel “political” but would like to come and find out more, please come and join us on Sunday and help celebrate saving the fields.

We’ll be meeting at the junction of Seymour Path and Marsh Lane, just west of the Eton Manor Athletics Club car-park (beside the Dagenham Brook).

Drinks afterwards at the Hare & Hounds (great Sunday lunch grub too!) if you can’t make the actual event.’

2012 Funding Should Not Be a Lottery

from Hackney Gazette, 25 January 2007

As a Hackney resident and somebody who works for a Lottery-funded project in Islington, I read last week’s Gazette article, “Groups fear Olympics shortfall will rob them of vital funds” with some degree of alarm.

I think Liz Hughes was absolutley right to ask the question about what exactly “…the legacy will be and how it will make up for all the projects which lose out”.

All the government spokesperson could come up wih in reply were soundbites about “benefits” outstripping “losses” and that the Olympics would “transform society” and “improve millions of lives”.

Your readers might like to ask themselves how will this extremely grand ambition be achieved in 2012 and beyond – given that no Olympics before has ever managed to do it.

The only “legacy” I can see from previous Olympics is a few impressive-looking (and under-used) buildings and some luxury housing developments that have taken over the athletes’ village after the Games have finished.

Finally, how is it that small community projects like the one I work for and the ones mentioned in the article (who do extremely valuable work with local communities day in and day out) have to say precisely what we will do and what the outcomes of this will be to get a few thousand pounds of funding from the Lottery when the Olympics is set to get billions of pounds on the basis of some vague aspirations that will never ever materialise?

Bob Taylor
Stamford Hill