By Aaron Barbour
Today saw the launch of the report “Fool’s Gold” In partnership with the new economics foundation (nef) LinksUK have produced a report to look ‘…from the ground up’ at the likely involvement of local people and businesses in the London 2012 Olympics and the impact the games will have.
The bid was won on the promise of a legacy that offered uber-regeneration for east London and its local residents. Our findings show that unless cast-iron guarantees are built into plans now then the Games will follow previous Olympics and fail to leave this positive legacy, for some of east London’s most disadvantaged communities.
Of around 500 contracts worth £1 billion, already awarded, only 11 per cent have gone to companies based in the five Olympic boroughs.
Action must be taken now. Otherwise it will be too late for local people and businesses to get involved. We developed a 10-point rescue plan, which could help to ensure that east London isn’t trampled in the Olympic gold rush. These include:
- Make community benefit a key criterion for all new contracts
- Make contracts accessible to local SMEs and social enterprises
- Appoint a new Board position on the Olympic and Lower Lea Valley planning boards for the local voluntary and community sector
- Establish an asset-holding organisation for the Olympic legacy. This organisation should play a transitional ‘care-taking’ role to ensure ownership of assets devolves to the local community.
The report is getting media good coverage and worth a read. The full report can be downloaded from The nef website which has further information.
[...] Last autumn we at Community Links put together our own analysis of the physical regeneration taking place around us in the London Borough of Newham, home to the new 2012 London Olympics site. Our Social Change booklet on Regeneration is available for free download (or email me for a printed copy). Much of what we considered is reflected in this weeks APUDG report. They also list in the bibliography a report we produced jointly with new economics foundation (nef) about the Olympic development entitled Fools Gold. [...]
[...] co-hosted a follow-up meeting last week about our recent ‘Fool’s Gold’ report, (see earlier blog post) which we co-authored with new economics [...]
[...] The presentations illustrated some of the constraints on genuine community engagement in complex developments. The recent new economics foundation report on the London 2012 Olympics “Fools Gold” produced in collaboration with LinksUK addresses some of these unresolved questions, and has been covered in an earlier post here. [...]
A quick update about the media coverage for the “Fool’s Gold” report, do check out the following:
Broadcast:
BBC Radio 5Live: Morning news bulletins, interview
BBC Radio London: Breakfast show, live interview
LBC: News update, live interview
BBC London News: Morning news bulletins, interview
ITV London News: Morning and evening news bulletins, interview http://www.itvlocal.com/london/news/?void=179538
Online:
BBC website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7358044.stm
Epolitix: http://www.epolitix.com/EN/News/200804/b1f43122-0d1d-4ee8-ac43-a0daf9a4ed2d.htm
Politics.co.uk: http://www.politics.co.uk/news/opinion-former-index/culture-media-and-sport/olympic-legacy-needs-protecting–$1219463.htm
Print:
The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/apr/21/olympics2012.communities
The Times: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3785292.ece