The challenge of the Games
Updated on 06 July 2005
In one of London's most deprived areas an Olympic village and sports facilities must be built from scratch. Can it be done and what on earth will it cost?
How will the 2012 games really affect east London?
It may be one of the most deprived parts of the country. But east London has just won the ultimate international civic beauty pageant. So no surprise at the old style east end knees up outside Stratford station today, but is a 2012 games really going change peoples lives round here?
Well there's certainly going to be a lot of work created. The only sport you could do on this site at the moment is mud wrestling. But in 2012 80,000 people will be arriving by a seven minute bullet train from central London to the Opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.
And this is the transformation required on the central Olympic Park site. and it's a lot easier to do in cartoon form than in real life.:
- A £70m aquatics centre designed by the award winning architect Zaha Hadid.
- £100m worth of arenas for the likes of basketball and volleyball
- 300m pound cycle helmet of a stadium nestled amongst undulating landscaped gardens. all built from scratch.
It's going to be a tall order. Not just in terms of construction. The site isn't actually vacant at all. More than 300 thriving businesses employing thousands of people are already based here. So there weren't many champagne corks being popped on the actual site of the Olympic stadium -- a salmon smoking plant and building suppliers.
But it didn't stop the party for local leaders back at Stratford station. They're anticipating a huge influx of cash and political attention, but were mindful of the huge task ahead.
So how much is this all going to cost?
Actually running the games is budgeted at one and a half billion pounds, but this will be covered by revenue like ticket sales and TV rights.
But the country will be putting in well over two billion pounds to pay for building all the stadia and venues. More than half from a special new lottery game,
a quarter from a £20 council tax surcharge for Londoners and the rest government money.
And there is a massive 8.4 billion pounds committed to associated transport and housing schemes in the area.
Few serious economists say that hosting these sorts of events really give an economic boost, other than as a giant billboard for the country.
The real genius of this bid was that it was a virtual one, where Britain's tradition of schmaltzy filmmaking and rebranding trumped the bricks, mortar and concrete of Paris' completed stadiums and excellent transport links.
It all means that by the 27th July 2012 - all this has to be transformed, the sort grand project that Britain has not excelled at in recent times.
