The Olympic Legacy List has less to do with the Olympics than its name suggests. True, it is responsible for the long-term cultural programme in the 618-acre Olympic Park but, as one insider put it, the real work begins when the circus leaves town.
The word on every Olympic panjandrum’s or British politician’s lips is legacy. There’s a lot that’s disingenuous about this. If regenerating the East End were all that mattered, a direct investment of £9 billion into infrastructure would have done very nicely, thank you. Still, just because the money could have gone further if it had been invested differently doesn’t mean that we have to gnash our teeth too much. After all, the Games are turning out to be quite fun and lots of people seem happy enough paying eye-watering sums on football season tickets, so why not spend some taxpayer’s money on athletics?
And once the rubbish has all been swept away there will be a legacy. It won’t be the Barcelona bump, where the Olympics is credited with helping the city turn itself into one of the great tourist destinations of the world, because London is already a great tourist destination and, besides, most visitors to London will still want to see Westminster and Buckingham Palace. But neither will it be the Greek catastrophe where, within four years of Athens 2004, 21 of 22 Olympic venues had been abandoned. The immense pressure on London housing means that the creep east is already well advanced, with a mass of recent development along the river. The athletes’ village, which will become social housing, will sit alongside plush towers of luxury apartments with soaring views. And if the right balance is struck, and the infrastructure works and the environment is pleasant, then we can all look forward to this being a major new area for London.
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