Assembly Member Seeks Greenwich Park Feedback

A member of the Greater London Assembly is asking for your feedback on how consulted you feel about the plans to use Greenwich Park as an equestrian event at London 2012.

Gareth Bacon – a London-wide assembly member – has distributed a survey to a number of homes (I’m not sure how many) in Greenwich asking if you have received communications from LOCOG or the Mayor about the impact of the games, or if you have been invited to any public meetings on the subject.

If you haven’t received the questionnaire and would like to respond, you can request an electronic copy by emailing liz.thompson@london.gov.uk.

Park Protesters Meet To Discuss Next Steps

Opponents of plans for the 2012 Equestrian events to be held in Greenwich Park held a meeting at the Forum@Greenwich in Trafalgar Road last week to discuss the next steps in their campaign.

Issues discussed at the NOGOE (No to Greenwich Olympic Equestrian Events) meeting included advertising restrictions on local traders near to the venue, enforceable under the Olympics Act 2006, and also a possible partial closure of the park again the year after the Olympics to allow for re-seeding where the temporary 23,000 seater stadium will have been erected.

The protest group also put forward the idea that if the events were not held in Greenwich Park, it could still form part of the games by being a location for large TV screens for viewing all of the events from an iconic location.

NOGOE have so far collected 6,000 signatures against the plans, and appealed to supporters to assist with further signature collections and even a possibly rally which might include a human ring around the park.

Sev D’Souza from NOGOE tells Greenwich.co.uk that they do not yet consider this to be a done deal, and they believe that LOCOG has a “plan B” which they could be forced to adopt if there are enough protests.

Meanwhile, Greenwich Council has called on LOCOG to ensure that they consult local people over possible road closures.  The Government has published the Olympic Route Network (ORN) – roads that could be closed whilst the games take place – which includes 44 roads in the borough of Greenwich.

Cllr Roberts, said, “”It’s crucial that the Olympic agencies take into account the views of local residents and businesses – who are after all the ones who will be most affected – before finalising their transport plans. Local people should be reassured that the Council will not support any proposals that fail to reflect local concerns.”

From The Horse’s Mouth: Greenwich.co.uk Talks To LOCOG

Apart from the acronyms, LOCOG (The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games) and NOGOE (No to Greenwich Olympic Equestrian Events) haven’t found much common ground over the past year. On this site both Sev D’Souza of NOGOE and Andrew Gilligan have highlighted many residents’ continued opposition to the Equestrian events at Greenwich Park. Their protest was borne out of concerns about potential damage to the park, and the considerable inconvenience to the residents caused by the closure of the park, with no demonstrable benefits. In light of this I went to the LOCOG meet and greet session at the park on Saturday and spoke to Equestrian manager Tim Hadaway and press officer Fran Edwards to ask their side of the story, and to find out what their perception is of local views about the Olympics at Greenwich.

As part of the advisory group that recommended Greenwich, Tim was directly involved in the decision: “Greenwich won out on its good transport links, proximity to Stratford and scope to host elements of the Modern Pentathlon.” Asked why these were such key enticements, Tim says “the bid was won on the strength of these being the London Games – we need to keep as many of the events as we can within the city”. Sites outside London would have been “far more challenging, both financially and logistically speaking”. He is also philosophical about Zara Phillips’ pro-Windsor comments, calling them “one person’s opinion” and saying that representatives of Zara’s have since written to NOGOE asking not to be connected with their campaign.

On the locals’ concerns regarding potential damage, Tim believes LOCOG have made good headway: “When we first started speaking to people, they would say ‘you’re cutting down all the trees aren’t you?’ They had visions of a Grand National-style motorway of horses carving up the whole site.” Now, however, Tim feels that initial misconceptions regarding damage have been largely corrected: “We can’t [damage anything] – English Heritage and The Royal Parks wouldn’t let us even if we’d wanted to.” So the trees will stay in their entirety then? “There will need to be some slight pruning on the lower branches of some trees for the cross-country, but nothing that won’t grow back. We won’t be cutting down any trees.”

Regarding the cross-country course, it will only last 1 day and Tim says the hoof damage from the 75 horses will be “minimal”, with the preparation focused on improving the grass’s irrigation leaving the ground “in a better state than before”…

However, the enduring bugbear – the park’s entire closure for the cross-country – is unavoidable. Fran says the lockdown is necessary “for the venue to be swept to ensure it is secure and to ensure that all facilities and buildings are in place. We take security very seriously”. The entire closure will last a maximum of 6 weeks, with the area that will house the main arena staying closed for at least 3-4 months. LOCOG are hoping for a phased re-opening of the park as early as a few days after the end of the cross-country.

The road closure plans are not yet concrete, so all I could get was the perennial promise of “minimal disruption” and although Romney Road will now fall outside the perimeter of the course, it is likely to be closed for at least the fortnight of the events to facilitate spectators.

Some would argue that these inconveniences are a small price to pay for the general excitement and prestige of having this event on our doorstep. LOCOG also believe that the much-debated legacy of the games will result from this prestige: “This event will become part of Greenwich’s history, people will remember the images they see of Greenwich during the Games and want to come and hunt it out after the Olympics.” They again speak of bringing equestrian sport to a new audience by having it in an urban setting, however they are vague when asked about ticket provision for locals. Apparently Greenwich Council are keen to allocate some tickets to local schoolchildren, but LOCOG are far from committed to this arrangement, and competition for tickets is likely to be high in the equestrian world. In other words don’t expect a ticket to be dropping through your door.

Overall LOCOG do admit that Greenwich has been one of their most notable PR headaches. Neil Walker, Community Relations Manager, attributed this to people being “frustrated” in the beginning because the nature of the Olympics means that they work back from an end date rather than having an upfront plan, so they “couldn’t always give all the answers people wanted.” It may sound a little ‘back foot’ to some, but Tim feels confident that they’ve been “open” as plans change. Fran and Tim even talk of being “pleasantly surprised about the positive reaction from locals”, boasting support from the Greenwich, Blackheath and Westcombe Societies, as well as Friends of Greenwich Park.

Despite the institutional support for the equestrian events here, both Fran and Tim admit that many residents will remain unmoved. “You will always get those people whose minds you can’t change and this may be the case with NOGOE”. With the planning application to be submitted near the end of this year, the way will soon be open for the mandatory public consultation that is now looking likely to be the final standoff. Watch this space.

What do you think? Are you convinced by LOCOG’s assurances? Do you believe their timescales for closures?

The Ongoing Greenwich Park Debate

A headsup for anyone that missed my post earlier in the week: LOCOG are holding their latest Greenwich Park consulation in the Tea Pavillion today (Friday 15th May) and tomorrow. This is your chance to ask questions about their plans for the park come 2012.

I hope to be interviewing someone from NOGOE next week to get an idea of how they think the campaign is going and find out what comes next as they try to halt the equestrian events taking place in Greenwich Park.

If you’re a keen follower of the debate, you might also want to listen to this interview that Sev D’Souza from NOGOE gave to LBC 97.3 recently. I think Sony Award winning presenter, and Blackheath resident, Nick Ferarri could have come up with a better preamble than “There are problems, particularly with the park, I think a site of historical importance, whatever it might be“.

Andrew Gilligan: Like Having the Builders Round… Forever

I was struck by a comment from a reader called Paul on last week’s column about Greenwich Market, and think it deserves a wider circulation. He wrote of the danger that in the run-up to that longed-for event of which we all dream, the Olympics, Greenwich will become little more than a series of building sites.

As well as the market, there’s the Olympic development in Greenwich Park, the Ofer Wing of the Maritime Museum (which will also affect the park), the foot tunnel, the old Village Market site, the new pier, the Cutty Sark, Greenwich Reach. As Paul says, “no tourist will want to walk around a load of building sites for the next three years and it won’t be long before word gets out that Greenwich is closed. In the rush to celebrate the Olympics fortnight, it seems that a long-term overview has been thrown out of the window.”

There are plenty of places that are unattractive, provide inadequate public amenities and need lots of work doing to them. But Greenwich isn’t one of them. I think (I’m biased, of course) that it’s one of the nicest areas in London. It just doesn’t need “regeneration,” especially not the airport-terminal kind that awaits us in the market.

Naturally, there are grotty bits – in the town centre, I’d nominate that bland, faceless block which houses Somerfield. But those aren’t the bits they’ll be tearing down. Those are the bits they’ll be copying.

So why has everyone suddenly, it seems, decided that what Greenwich needs is a complete rebuild – all at once? As Paul suggests, the Olympics must have something to do with it. One of the worst things about the Games is the way that a single fortnight has come to dominate, even monopolise, official thinking, as if it is somehow more important than all the months and years which go before it and after it.

It isn’t, of course. The Olympics will be with us for two weeks. The new market could be with us for a century. But the way it’s looking, the priorities of the two weeks will mean that the project for the century is rushed through the planning process without proper scrutiny, then thrown up in months – and is, as a result, far worse than it should be.

We need to stop. We need to take our time. We need to tell ourselves that in the long run, the Olympics simply do not matter. Within months of the closing ceremony, they will be all but forgotten by almost everyone. The market, however, will be in our faces for decades. The short-term goal of a shiny Olympic fortnight is not remotely a good enough reason to compromise Greenwich’s long-term future.

We need to tell ourselves that even during the fortnight, the Greenwich end of the Olympics will not matter. The centre of attention will be on the athletics and the swimming, seven miles to the north. The horse events will get half an hour on TV. There won’t be many Olympic-related visitors to Greenwich – they’ll all be heading for Stratford. Greenwich Council may want to put on a show, but not many people will be coming.

Building white elephants at Stratford is bad enough. But at least some people will want to see them, and they will be safely out of sight of the rest of us. Building white elephants in the middle of a successful town centre is far worse – and the error is compounded by the fact that not many of the people the “improvements” are supposed to attract will even be interested.

PS: I forgot to give the address for objections to the market planning application last week. Emails should be sent to david.gittens@greenwich.gov.uk, quoting reference numbers 09/0829/F and 09/0830/C. Gittens’ postal address is Crown Building, 48 Woolwich New Roas, SE18 6HQ.

Act soon – you only have until 26 May.

LOCOG Greenwich Park Consultation 15/16 May

Locog will be at the Pavillion Tea House in Greenwich Park on the 15th and 16th of May between 10am and 6pm to talk about their plans for Greenwich Park at the 2012 Olympics.

NOGOE’s Media Blitz

It was just a few weeks ago that BBC London’s Adrian Warner was reporting that peace had broken out between Locog and local opponents to the plans for the equestrian events in Greenwich Park. But last week there was something of a media blitz from NOGOE, including news in the Daily Mail that complaints were being lodged with the BBC over that controversial BBC report by Warner.

Elsewhere, a posting on the Save Greenwich Park blog about the threat to the park’s bioversity was picked up in The Wharf newspaper.

Then on Thursday, London Tonight did a report to coincide with the latest visit from IOC inspectors, and spoke to Sev D’Souza from NOGOE and also to the Equestrian Competition Manager for London 2012, Tim Hadaway.

Sev was back again on Friday with an appearance on BBC Radio 4’s You and Yours which reported on the ongoing controversy.

So far from peace having broken out,  it seems this one has a way to run yet and NOGOE are as determined as ever to make their voice heard.

Lord Coe Responds To Greenwich Critics

Seb Coe has written an article for the Telegraph in which he attempts to rebut the “myths” propogated by a “vocal minority” concerning the use of Greenwich Park as an Olympic venue.

The Locog chairman says one of the reasons for choosing Greenwich is that the location enables equestrian competitors to feel part of the games and not be detached from the main events as they have often been in previous games although he seems a little less concerned about the sailing teams who will be based in Weymouth.

He acknowledges that there might not be a “bricks and mortar” legacy but asserts that “having the equestrian events at Badminton or Burghley is not necessarily going to put one more child on a horse”.

Responding to claims that the park could be closed for a year, he says that constructions of the arena will begin in the park in April 2012 although critics will point out that he neglects to mention the test event planned for 2011. He refers to local residents as “partners” in the project and says there will be full public consultations as formal planning permission is sought.

Read the article for yourself – do you find Lord Coe’s arguments convincing?

Andrew Gilligan: Park Shenanigans (2)

GREENWICH Council has just sent me a council tax bill for more than £1000. But after going to its councillors’ latest Olympic-related public meeting, I’ve come to think that, for the entertainment value alone, they’re worth every penny.

Last week’s gathering, at Mycenae House, was an altogether smaller affair than the grand event at the Dome in December. As greenwich.co.uk reported at the time, the council resorted to some fairly neat body-swerves to avoid being unduly troubled on that occasion. People living within feet of the park were refused admission to the meeting on the grounds that they lived in Lewisham; organisations funded by the council were given tickets and encouraged to make “positive contributions;” other residents were told that the meeting was “full,” even as the council continued to urge its own employees to attend.

Last week’s event, however, run by the local Labour Party, was much less smooth. It took the form of Greenwich’s cabinet member for culture and the Olympics, Councillor John Fahy, spinning what can only be described as a web of purest fantasy. Here is a selection, in his own words:

1. “The Olympics in the Park have universal support.”

2. “The Olympic organisers have addressed the ecology issue, and that’s well documented.”

3. “Locog have dealt with the points being raised [by objectors] and it is a done deal.”

4. “There will not be months of closures.”

5. “There will be long-term benefits for Greenwich – watch this space.”

Let us deal with these statements in order.

1. The Olympics in the park do not have universal support. The Friends of Greenwich Park oppose them. The Blackheath Society opposes them. The Olympic rider Zara Phillips opposes them. Large numbers of local people, judging by the membership lists and responses to the anti-equestrian event campaign, Nogoe, oppose them. (Fahy later amended his claim to say that the Greenwich Park plan has “majority support,” but was unable to say how he knew that – since, to my knowledge, no surveys or polls have been done.)

2. The Olympic organisers have not addressed the ecology issue. They have certainly claimed, often, that the park will not be damaged – but as with Fahy’s claim of public support, they seem to have no basis whatever for that claim. No detailed studies of any description have yet been done to show how the ecology of the park will, or will not, be affected by putting 23,000 spectators, a stadium, hundreds of buildings and a 4-mile cross-country course in it. The only truthful answer to the ecology question is that we do not know. That’s precisely the problem.

3. Locog have not dealt with the points raised by objectors, of which the ecology and environment are of course the main ones. They have simply brushed them aside. To recap: no objector accuses Locog, or the council, of deliberately intending to damage the park. But we cannot be confident that damage will not be caused. Our confidence is further reduced precisely by the organisers’ refusal to address any of the points we make.

4. As Locog’s director of sport, Debbie Jevans, confirmed in an Evening Standard interview with me last year, most of the bottom half of Greenwich Park will be closed for “two to three months” in summer 2011 for the Olympic test event and for a further seven to eight months in 2012: a total of around ten months. “We anticipate starting major building works in March 2012 and will hand back the park about six weeks after the end of the Paralympics,” she said. The Paralympics end on September 4 2012.

5. As London 2012 itself admits, “the facilities at Greenwich Park are temporary and nothing will remain after the Games.” No legacy is planned and no-one at Greenwich Council can specify what such a legacy might be. As one objector quietly pointed out, “Greenwich Park is the legacy – a legacy of previous generations.”

What the meeting showed me, again, was the utter absence of any serious argument for doing this. It is a policy based on, at best, head-in-the-sand denial – or, at worst, a set of straightforward lies. And when the objectors to the use of the Park at the meeting made their points, the quality of the responses made by the Olympics’ defenders was even more dismally bad.

“This is a Labour Party meeting, and if you’re fed up with it then leave,” said one. “Fifty-three million people haven’t signed your petition,” snapped another. The anti-equestrian contingent was “handled” by some of the worst, most crudely partisan chairing I’ve seen in a while: step forward Marjorie Nzerem, vice-chair of the Greenwich Labour Party, who simply didn’t want to hear from anyone not following the approved line.

Councillor Fahy’s statement that the Greenwich Park Olympics are a “done deal” was, to some extent, echoed by his colleague, Alex Grant, chair of the council’s planning board, which will soon have to consider London 2012’s planning application. “While the council has a policy of supporting Greenwich hosting the Olympics, we will not be a rubber stamp,” he told the meeting, adding that “we can attach conditions” to the planning permission. Asked whether there were any circumstances in which planning permission could actually be refused, Cllr Grant declined to answer. How “done” the deal actually is, the next few months will tell.

NOGOE Turns Up The Heat On Olympic Organisers

NOGOE have released a 36 page report which makes the case against using historic Greenwich Park as the venue for London 2012’s equestrian events. The detailed report sets out to describe the risks and practical difficulties, as they see it, of using the Royal Park for such an event.

The objections break down into four main points:

1 that it is potentially damaging for such an important site with its many ancient trees, archaeological remains and fragile ecology;
2 that not only will it be more expensive than alternative venues but it will leave no meaningful legacy from the very large financial and other economic costs incurred;
3 that the social and economic impact of closures of the Park and surrounding roads is out of all proportion;
4 that there are real doubts about the legality of some aspects of the proposals.

You can read the report for yourself on the NOGOE website.

This report follows hot on the heels that chamption eventer and 2012 medal hopeful, Zara Phillips, has also questioned the wisdom of Greenwich Park being an Olympic venue.

On a similar note, Darryl at the 853 blog has news of a public meeting on Wednesday 11th March to discuss issues surrounding the use of Greenwich Park for 2012.

UPDATE: Darryl’s write up of the meeting can be found here.

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