Tomorrow is the last chance for local residents to visit the London 2012 exhibition in College Approach.
The temporary pop-up shop has a model of how Greenwich Park might look with the temporary stadium erected, and has staff on hand to answer questions. You can also give your feedback by completing a written form in there.
The spurt of consultation activity – there’s also a dedicated website and earlier this week, London 2012 equestrian chief, Tim Hadaway, penned an article for Greenwich.co.uk – comes as LOCOG prepare to put forward a formal planning application to Greenwich Council.
Have you already been to the London 2012 shop? Do you think it has been a worthwhile exercise? Should it have been there for longer and were the staff able to answer your questions? Post your comments below.
How long has this been open? The first I knew of it was the article elsewhere on thissite on Wednesday.
if I can’t get along on Saturday (I have to visit my father in hospital on the either side of the country – sorry for putting that first, London 2012), what are my options for seeing the real plans and being able to discuss them with people?
Hi – I did put a piece up a few weeks back with details:
http://www.greenwich.co.uk/news/1983-locog-to-open-temporary-exhibition-in-greenwich/
There’s a phone number on the website they have set up which might be able to tell you more but I have a feeling that this will be your last chance to see it in person before the planning application goes in.
Cheers, Rob – I’ve not been an habitué of this site, so hadn’t seen it. I might stick around now 🙂
I do wonder how people who don’t follow this site were meant to know about it.
Am I right about this – the entire “consultation” with local residents has been one ill-advertised exhibition, lasting a total of 8 days, with just three of those days being when people with Mon-Fri jobs could get there?
There has been consultations for about a year , there was a couple of exhibitions up at the tea pavillion in the park but mostly they have been talking to greenwich society etc rather than actual talking to people and consultations have avoided asking the question of whether anyone actually wants this.
Well they have packed up and gone now and one of the lads outside the shop was shouting “Come on in – last chance to have your say” at 3.30 yesterday – one of the more truthful utterances I have heard during any of LOCOG’s “Consultations. ” I asked a total of 24 questions last Saturday and a further two yesterday and none could be answered – in fact I am sick of the blank replies, such as “We are working on that,” “We can’t divulge that” or cocky & ill-informed lectures on how ‘This will not be the first time horses have been ridden in The Park’. Apart from moving the Stadium site (when they realised they could not build foundations into the railway tunnel and portrayed this move as “Listening to public concerns” ; changing the route of the Cross-country course 5 times, also portrayed as “Listening to concerns” but denying their lack of Park knowledge; a few concessions to closures, nothing has changed from the first “Consultation” on Traffic Free, “Run to the beat ” day last year (when we were all marooned by a mere half-marathon not three weeks of Olympics) One would have hoped by now that they may have moved on from “The Bigger Picture” to be able to tell us a little more detail. In the exhibition,the 2011 events were played down, the full closures for the Paralympics weren’t evident, the large map shown at Blackheath Halls with trees was missing – the large map they showed had no trees. The exhibition opening times weren’t helpful to local shop owners, nor those who work M-F out of the borough. Rather rude they couldn’t at least stay until Sunday evening? “Oh we’ll be here for another week or so” said Neil Walker of LOCOG last Saturday with typical PR vague optimism. Neil Walker last Saturday also said that the stadium would “Only be scaffolding” but we checked with the architects and they confirmed that no way would a 23,000 seat stadium be “Only scaffolding” and that it is unlikely to look like either of the artists’ impressions LOCOG have been showing………Neil Walker also said there wasn’t going to be an electricity substation although our MP, Nick Raynsford told a group of us back in May that was going to be one of the Park’s legacies so there could be more big events in The Park. One officer when asked about Lord Coe’s recent press statement about 24/7 activity in Greenwich during the games said he knew nothing about that, to which I said surely he’s your boss and you’d know what he meant and he told me that “Sarcasm wasn’t necessary”…………………….. Apart from not being able to tell us where the 40 jumps will be sited nor how they will secure them into the ground, in order to keep the play park open longer they are having to build the jump they are leaving behind as “Legacy” outside the play park then extend the play park to include it – but can’t show the new boundaries or how they will not rip up some of the hawthorn hedge presumably because they’ve been told to say the stock answer of not damaging any trees. No one could tell us anything about security and how we might be affected even though we have spoken to security fencing contractors who assure us they would have to firmly secure a lot of the site earlier than LOCOG tell us. The lack of knowledge demonstrated by LOCOG’s officers and their failure to appreciate our need to be told the whole truth is infuriating – it was like talking to drunks in a pub – no sensible rational debate could take place. No wonder we don’t trust them.
Why do you claim that the latest in a long line of course designs isn’t going through the Flower Garden when it is? The map shows the Flower Garden as just the bit round the lake. The really vulnerable part, through the cedar trees, where the course is shown as going through it, is not marked as Flower Garden.
And you also claim that you moved the arena from the north to the south side of the Queen’s House because of archaeological considerations. That is partly true, but the real reason it had to be moved was because there is a railway tunnel running very close below the surface.The area could not have supported the weight of an arena and 23,000 people. There wasn’t enough room, either, because the bid was made on a map which showed the Park as twice the size it really is. All the trees along Romney Road would have had to come down and the grandstand would have been cantilevered out over the road. So in fact you did originally propose to cut down trees, but having to change the site of the arena allowed you to claim that no such action was involved.
Doesn’t it prove that Greenwich Park is the wrong place when after two years or so of trying to fit a cross-country course in there is still no satisfactory resolution?
Who are these people? One LOCOG officer got so frustrated at my asking pertinent questions he said, “Well if you don’t like it why do you live here?”
I’ve lived here 40 years – how dare these people think they can push me around?!
For what’s worth, the two people I met went I went to visit the “shop” were polite, and were communicative in answering my questions.
Yes GORN61 – I wouldn’t tar all the LOCOG attendants with the same brush – two were sweet and wrote lots of notes and said how they would look into the questions and if they ever turn up in my office looking for work I wouldn’t turn them down but really the pre-consultation training was woefully inadequate to the point of arrogance and not “Consulting” at all. They had all obviously been given lines of “NO trees will be harmed” “Everything is going to be OK,” “Deny anything harmful”. It’s not the employees’ fault they have to work for LOCOG. We all have to tow corporate lines to pay our rent and taxes. I lost my cool with them for being so inadequately prepared and so lacking in knowledge. There should be much more detail by now – as promised by Tim Hadway in his blog and it wasn’t forthcoming. That is IT now until those of us who persist can get Planning Application details….if they were really consulting they would be consulting a Plan B……..
Why I mistrust LOCOG.
They smooth-talked many people in their presentation at Blackheath Halls recently but their assurances don’t stand up to scrutiny. The impression I got at the shop wasthat they will say anything to try to reassure you.
1. I asked whether the Environmental Impact Assessment(EIA) would be made public. “Yes, it would be in the Appendix to the planning application” I was told. On one of the exhibits it actually says, “The EIA would inform the Environmental Statement which would form part of the planning application” Not quite the same thing.
2. I mentioned that the Ancient Tree Forum, part of the Woodland Trust, on a walk through the Park recently expressed concern as to whether the necessary protective clearances around trees would be adhered to, and gave indications that they would object to the planning application. LOCOG’s response to this was that the Woodland Trust had visited them and expressed no objection. Subsequent contact with the Woodland Trust confirmed there has been NO contact with LOCOG.
3.The map of the spectator’s route showed it passing along Straitsmouth, then along past the church, crossing Creek Road, through the College, crossing Romney Road and into the Park. I put it to LOCOG that this would result in traffic congestion and road closures. But it was stated categorically that there would be NO road closures and traffic modelling suggested no traffic jams. Similarly there would be NO lane closures along the A2 for the Olympic family’s route. If you believe that you’ll believe anything.
FWIW, having changed my travel arrangements for the weekend so as to be able to go to the “consultation shop” on Saturday, my views are the following.
1) I think the Olympics are a white elephant. However, if they are going ahead, and they have to have horsey and shooty events, those events have to have a venue.
2) Given the desire to keep the Olympics compact, Greenwich park is a reasonable candidate. Of the several possible candidates, it is a particularly lovely one.
3) I absolutely do not buy the spin of the “legacy benefits” for Greenwich if these events happen in the park. I see no benefits for Greenwich that it wouldn’t also get if the events were elsewhere. There’s no legacy from a temporary arena.
4) I absolutely do expect there to be damage to the park, and dreadful congestion on the surrounding roads, and on trains, buses and DLR, particularly given the proposals for closing some key roads for “security” reasons for over a month.
5) It is annoying to have parts of the park closed for several months, and all of the park (bar the flower gardens) closed for one month at the height of the summer.
6) I have no interest whatever in the competitions that will be held in the park.
7) Despite all that, given I must accept point (1), I welcome the competitors and spectators to Greenwich Park for that month. I will be doing all that is my (very limited) power to make sure they get a good welcome and have an enjoyable time. i want them to go away having had a great time, out of human goodwill, not any ulterior motive.
The biggest problem I have with the events in the park is the high-handed (and cack-handed) way the consultation has been handled. rather than trying to involve locals, and to ask our views about whether we want this, and if we do what our ideas are about making it work well, we’ve been presented with an arrogant fait accompli, accompanied lies about taking our views into account.
Dear GORN61 – don’t buckle…….stand firm! – you know in your heart you are right to oppose what will amount to the end of Greenwich Park as a haven of safety, peace and tranquility, sold out to a body intent on building stuff and then taking it down again at huge material cost – not athletics.It will become a showground. If you want to participate in the ‘disneyfication’ of the Greenwich at the cost of its survival – then on your conscience be it. You are right – the consultations should have started FOUR YEARS AGO when the bid was announced but no, it has been shrouded in secrecy and PR manipulation. It is very, very sad. They have split our community into greedy folk, those that think their ‘friends’ in the establishment should not be challenged and those of us who are truly protective of something very special which does not have a building site price tag……..please…….everything is not up for sale- that is so not the way to go. They don’t build Parks like Greenwich any more – it took 400 years to get to this precious state – we can’t let a group of PR chaps ruin it. We need to protect it. You have to ask the question – what would you protect? Where do your ethics stop? Would you sell your Mother?
I’m trying to work out if you actually believe that, or are satirising the opposers.
Dear GORN61 – I passionately believe it.