Waltham Forest is one of five London boroughs which have been designated host boroughs for the 2012 Summer Olympics. The training facilities at the privately managed Waltham Forest Pool & Track will allegedly be used by Olympians to prepare for the Olympics, with the velopark being built in Leyton.
This whole Olympic thing does not really mean much to many people, but it is already having an effect on some of our councillors, who have prayed the Olympics in aid a couple of time as justifications for a TV screen in the town square to be put up, but which no one seems to know what to do with, and for anti-litter and vaguely motivated anti-fast food campaigns. They have also diverted funds intended for the poor for various Olympic activities, and then apparently allowed these to disappear into thin air.
But it is not all gloom. The council trumpets a number of benefits on its website, claiming that after 2012, "Waltham Forest will have brand new facilities, a state of the art National Hockey Centre, tennis courts, football and multi-sport facilities". The Velodrome, is not actually in the borough, but as it sits only 50 metres over our border, the council include that as well. They do not include the swimming pool at Waltham Forest College which they decided to close in the run up to the games.
More than the physical infrastructure, the council claims: "The Games will bring so much more than just venues and facilities, and we are determined to make sure being a host borough means tangible and long-term benefits for local people." They even have a master plan, called the Northern Olympic Fringe masterplan, which can be perused on their website. This was prepared at public expense using consultants Urban Practitioners and Maxwan. The area their plan covers did not, however, include Walthamstow. On the assumption that if they could think of a benefit for the people of this area to boast about they would do so, I can only take it that the council, which also employs at our public expense something called the 2012 Team, can think of no benefits at all for Walthamstow from the games, tangible or otherwise.
One apparent benefit of the games has been an increasing interest in the flora and fauna of the Lea Valley, just north of where much of Olympics will take place. Apparently they have found a rare marshwort, Apium repens. Whether it would have gone on living there happily unnoticed without the Olympics is an interesting question. I tend to think it would.
There have been critics of the cost to the public as a whole, to London particularly and already some hints and murmers are doing the rounds suggesting there are some dodgy financial relationships expected to be revealed. There are a number of groups monitoring these kinds of things.
There are also significant fears that the Olympic curse, whereby the post-Olympic economy is actually hurt by the experience of putting on the games despite the hopes of the regeneration and development experts, will effect East London. It hit Athens, Sydney and Beijing, despite assurances to the contrary, so why would the pattern not repeat itself?