Local pressure group, No to Greenwich Olympic Equestrian Events (NOGOE), began its signature drive across the bank holiday weekend. Their representives were out and about in Greenwich and they tell me they collected over 1000 signatures for their petition against the plans to use Greenwich Park as a venue for the 2012 Olympics.
Sev from NOGOE sent me this pic of a protestor who isn’t actually a member of the group, but took a petition and before long had a queue ready to sign up in Tranquil Vale.
If people were lining up round the corner to sign this guy’s petition – how come the picture shows him all alone?
Spin me thinks…
You had to be there.
Curious that the man is in Blackheath protesting rather than Greenwich. Blackheath (the heath) is regularly blocked, covered and disturbed by fairs and other disruptions. I haven’t started a campaign against it but given how much fun people are having being terribly ANGRY I might start one.
I’m still entirely confused by why NOGOE and their supporters are so aggravated by the Olympics in the park.
Is it a subtext for hating sport? I’ve been shouted out by dog walkers in Greenwich Park for running in a manner than aggravated their dogs (!). At the moment I’m presuming it’s these types that are opposing the Olympics, so am really struggling to get on side.
“Curious that the man is in Blackheath protesting rather than Greenwich” – Why’s that curious? People from outside of SE10 do use the park.
Indigo – your comment “you had to be there” is very lame
NOGOE are not stupid – they know a picture tells a 1000 words. If there really had been a long queue of people waiting to sign this petition I’m sure they would have captured it on camera.
The fact that the only picture they can supply shows a lonely man – with no one signing the petition – speaks volumes….
I think NOGOE have been found out once more. They should be called NOSUPPORT instead
How about a simple solution. All you horsey fans (and table tennis, field hockey and all those other subsidised ‘sports’) can pay for your olympics. I could opt out and spend the money on my football season ticket instead. Everyone’s a winner.
What a silly reply.
Where would that line of thought end?
I mean why should I pay taxes towards the policing of your beloved football matches, or the effort that goes into forcing parking restrictions on match days, or the clean up efforts when people leaving the ground increase litter in the surrounding areas?
That outlook is so typically NIMBY of NOGOE supporters it is unreal…
Jim
100% agree with you. You shouldnt have to pay and you dont as the clubs pay 100% of the cost. The BILLIONS that we are shelling out on the Olympics I dont remember ever featuring in a Labour party manefesto? Oh and Jim the Sydney Olympic stadium what happened to that? Oh it went bankrupt. That cost will be with us and our children for a long long time. Still we will all get to see some ponies clip clopping round are public spaces for a few days.
Fat Cat, you remind the rest of us why football supporters are so loved by the rest of society.
Tom, glad to be of assistance.
To be of some help as to why this resident doesnt want the horse events in the park
1. Many residents rely on the park for a number of leisure activities, running, the childrens park etc etc. I do not think that the benefits of hosting the Olympic events off set losing these facilities in the middle of Summer.
2. Why not hold the Eventing at a suitable venue. Isnt Badminton one of the premier 3 day events on the planet? There should be events outside of London given that the UK government is footing part of the bill.
3. I persoanlly think the Olympics are a grotesque waste of tax pounds. london seems to think we will engineer a lasting lagacy from the games when history tells us that this will not be the case. (Athens, Sydney, Atlanta, Montreal and even Barcalona).
4. I would completely accept having both the games in London and the Horse events in the park if this had in any way been subject to the usual democratic rigours.
5. I am not a member of NOGOE but i like local activism, I dont see it as NIMBYism rather I see it as a sign of a healthy pluralist system.
I – like many other sport fans in London – am really looking forward to being able to use top-notch facilities we have been deprived of for decades in London. I race track bikes and can’t wait until London finally has its own indoor velodrome.
Given the lack of investment in sporting facilities in London in recent decades, London seems well placed to be able to use many of these facilities, unlike smaller cities were sports provision has already been well met.
That said, all the opposition to the Olympics has kept the organisers on their toes, hopefully forcing them to think hard about legacy provision in general, and how they use the park in particular.
For me the appeal of the Olympics outweighs the downsides. It’s three years away, and the closures won’t be for long, and there really are far more important things to worry about – locally, as well as nationally. I know others don’t agree, but that’s a pluralistic society for you.
I am still interested in what exactly this mythical ‘legacy’ will be in Greenwich; a few pruned trees and no access to the park for the summer holiday for the kids? At least local schools will benefit from free tickets to the Olympics, won’t they? Oh, it appears that not even that concession will be made for this community.
Paul, if you are so interested why not do some research? We’ve already got one bloke here that makes over-the-top under-researched assertions and hyperbolic claims about the interests of “the community”.
So, Tom, do please enlighten me, just what is the Olympic legacy for Greenwich? So far my research has failed to uncover anything so it would be really helpful if you could point me in the right direction
Thanks
paul, what you don’t want to see you won’t see.
but just for the record let me drag your reluctant eyeballs to my comment *immediately above* your first wail, which named one legacy from the olympics, and one group of users who are very much looking forward to using this facility.
or, why not press the words “olympics” and “legacy” into google and look at your blinkin’ screen!
Tom, I apologise for not seeing that you had already answered my question. You are correct; the closure of the park, depriving local children of green space for months on end, increasing traffic and pollution and potentially damaging a world heritage site will all be worth it as it will lead to the legacy of you and your fellow track racers getting a velodrome in Stratford.
I guess I was just being a little optimistic in hoping that all the billions of pounds spent was going to have a positive social impact or real meaning for residents (yourself and other track cyclists excluded of course)
well done paul for your life-enhancing sarcasm. how the internet thrills at the mighty power of your wit. maybe your next challenge will be to gain a sense of proportion and the power to type words into google.
http://www.culture.gov.uk/reference_library/publications/5161.aspx/
and why should real people in London be excluded from your definition of “positive social impact”?
Maybe you and andrew should meet some real people, some real kids, who really are excited by the olympics, kids who take part in real sports, rather than money-driven “sport” that now revolves around satisfying fat blokes watching the telly. At the moment all I can see is some jaded blokes whinging about something they know nothing about. Hardly edifying.
As tom suggested, I went to http://www.culture.gov.uk/reference_library/publications/5161.aspx/ and couldn’t see much mention of Greenwich.
I went into the document titled Legacy Action Plan: “Before, during and after: making the most of the London 2012 Games” and the only reference to Greenwich was in the footnotes where it listed the Olympic boroughs.
It’s not ignoble for people in Greenwich to ask “what’s in it for us?”. What’s the legacy that will be uniquely available for the people of Greenwich in return for the sacrifice of their park for a period of time.
tom – do you know what the legacy for Greenwich is from all this? Please don’t suggest I use Google and my keyboard because I’ve done that and am none the wiser. Is there a tangible legacy for Greenwich? If there is, great, let me know and maybe I’ll become a supporter.
As a Londoner I find it odd to hear about all this “people of Greenwich” stuff. Many of the facilities that will remain after the games will be a few miles away from Greenwich, at the end of a DLR route and overground lines (or just a few minutes away by bike or car). Every day I travel outside the borough of Greenwich to work, and I don’t go around complaining about it.
And by focusing solely on provision within the borough this denies the reality of living in London – that many of the facilities we enjoy in our city are large in scale and few in number. But for many “niche” sports (ie ones that people do rather than watch) we hardly have the facilties at all (Olympic-sized swimming pools, for instance).
It might not sound like it, but I’m not a supporter of anything the Olympics authorities do, but I’m also not at the opposite extreme – looking for any and all reasons to criticise the Olympics.
Tom, with my sarcasm and your incessant patronising of anyone who disagrees with you we could have a good team going here! Sorry but I don’t understand your comments about real people. I do actually work with young people and in my experience they cannot usually afford racing bikes or horses and often do stay in their very local area to socialise, live and go to school – no, its not ideal but I would have thought that you would know through your work with young people.
Some young people are excited about the Olympics and I find it odd and disappointing that the Olympics authorities have yet to make any promises to give a real Olympics experience to the children and young people of this city. Most young people will get no nearer the Olympics than being banned from the park and seeing the event on TV – it may as well be in LA for all the impact it will have on them. The only impact it will have on them is that the park they play in will be closed for months – depriving them of a green space during the summer holidays.
I am at a loss as to what you mean by suggesting that I believe real people should be excluded from a positive social impact – I very much believe that the city should be for all. Just like Greenwich Park
“I am at a loss as to what you mean by suggesting that I believe real people should be excluded from a positive social impact”
“I guess I was just being a little optimistic in hoping that all the billions of pounds spent was going to have a positive social impact or real meaning for residents (yourself and other track cyclists excluded of course)”
I named some real people and then you excluded them.
It would be great to have a rational debate about this. For instance, I think it’s a great thing for London to have some – a few, please! – top class sporting facilities available to everyone, not just the elite. And as someone who trains alongside deprived kids from Hackney I can assure you cycling is not a sport only for the rich.
In my view, kids from all backgrounds should have access to as many sporting (and cultural) opportunities as they can – naming certain sports as “posh” doesn’t help anyone. (And cycling has a very long working class history, in case you were wondering.)
But as you say, little has so far been done to publicise the real experiences people will have of the games facilities. I think there’s quite a lot going on in schools though, and I know that a lot of cultural stuff will be done around London soon — I know people bidding for funds — so I also hope this changes, and there is more recognition of what’s done.
More on the games legacy:
http://www.building.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=29&storycode=3142505&c=3
Also, given paul’s contempt for track cycling, it’s worth noting that there’s ONE facility still being used from London’s last Olympic Games in 1948.
It’s Herne Hill velodrome – a run-down shamble of a place (no changing rooms, no weather cover, portacabins, worn out track surface), but still used by hundreds every week.
Tom, serious question. Should the tax payer fund your leisure time? We are a pretty small country so how many world class velodromes do we need? Given there is one in Manchester and one in Ediburgh and I asusme now one in Glasgow for the commonwealth games? How many Olympic pools do we need? There is one in Sheffield and one in Bath? I am not saying that London shouldnt have great facilities but should the tax payer really fork out for one of everything? A real sporting legacy would involve using the cash to buy back sports fields that schools have been forced to sell. It would be used to ensure that all school kids received properly funded PE and organised games time.
My prediction is that the Olympic legacy will be some bankrupt venues, a white elephant and vastly over priced housing estate in stratford, some well paid consultants and Seb Coe’s ego being suitably pumped up.
Just when I thought you had finished having a go at me all the while, here you go again accusing me of contempt of track cycling. I admitted I was being facetious, but, as you have started again I have to say that I totally agree with FatCat – a real legacy would have been accessible spaces and lots of grassroots level projects that help engage the community. (ie. the non ‘real’ people)
The article you highlight doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence either – though I suppose its better for them to admit their legacy plans aren’t fit for purpose now rather than later. Though isn’t the lack of legacy that they are now admitting to exactly what you were shooting me down for saying earlier? Seems that I was ahead of the Olympics team in thinking that they needed something more substantial in the way of a legacy
Fat Cat,
How many velodromes and Olympic pools does the country need you ask? How many public parks and green open spaces does London need? You’ve got Hyde, Regents, Green, Richmond, St James, Victoria, Blackheath etc. etc. etc. They’re all a lot closer than Manchester, Edinburgh, Sheffield or Bath.
And as for whether the tax payer should fund sports facilities – where would a large number of our museums, galleries and indeed parks be without Government funding?
FatCat, I’m not asking the taxpayer to fund my leisure time. Instead, I believe that the country gains from having a few top class sporting facilities. It hardly has any now.
Herne Hill velodrome is likely to close in the next few years cos its owners want to redevelop it. It’s mainly used by kids, so yeah, I guess it’s a great idea to limit their opportunities. I mean South London kids are inundated with exciting things to do on the streets aren’t they?
Here’s a clip about Edinburgh velodrome. Listen to the awful little kids prattling on selfishly about how they might want to train somewhere within a couple of hundred miles of where they live. How dare they? What kind of country do they think we live in?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2BXGtapKMw
The best thing would be for sport in this country to be limited to the type where we pay billions to watch over-paid foreigners kick a ball about.
While we’re at it, how many football stadiums do we really need? Let’s cancel all that public funding and let them go bust when the TV money drains away (as it inevitably will, cf Setanta). I mean, it’s only culture isn’t it? Doesn’t earn any money.
I give up on this thread. It depresses me too much. You guys can’t be bothered to read about what the real legacy of the games is intended to be – regeneration of East London – and are just sounding off based on your prejudices.
I think that there should be a lot of public money going into museums, sports facilities, cultural activities. I also happen to think that closing a major park in the school summer holidays for the exhibition of an elitist sport to a paying audience is wrong.
Tom, you constantly harp on about the regeneration of east London and thats a good thing. But, as that link you posted the other day demonstrates, the Olympic committee don’t even know themselves what the legacy will be and are going to have to go for a re-think. If there was £9billion going for regeneration and culture I can think of a lot better outcomes than whats on the table now
Try and make me out to be a prejudiced elitist all you like but I actually think that cultural activities should be well-funded, accessible and inclusive
I don’t “constantly harp on” about East London, in fact that’s the first time I’ve mentioned it.
Isn’t the ‘legacy’ the regeneration of east London? Or are they two different things now?
I have no idea what you are talking about. We have generally been “discussing” the merits of elite sports facilities. Regeneration of the East London is something different.
Haven’t you been accusing everyone of not knowing what the Olympic legacy is? Isn’t the Olympic legacy generally considered to be regeneration in east London. You did, after all, post the link to the article about regeneration in Newham to support your argument. If you do your research, as you so regularly tell everyone else to do, you will find that the Olympic legacy is inextricably tied up with regeneration of east London.
It seems a little disingenuous to suddenly claim that all your rants have only been about whether London needs an ‘elite’ sports facility. The argument as read by most people is about the closure of Greenwich Park and the potential legacy for Greenwich. You did say that even though the local people would not have a green space for most of the summer at least London would get a decent velodrome – thats where the discussion about elite sports came from. My argument was whether local people needed to be deprived of their main green space in order to showcase what I do feel is an elite sport (the figurehead for equestrian in the UK is royalty after all)
On another note,if Seb Coe is so desperate for a compact Olympics why does he think boxing will be better off in Wembley? I don’t think the Olympics committee can use the compact games argument when it is to their advantage and then forget it when it is not.
One link to a brief news article and you describe it as “constantly harping on” …? A sense of proportion in your debating style is long overdue.
“If you do your research, as you so regularly tell everyone else to do, you will find that the Olympic legacy is inextricably tied up with regeneration of east London.”
Well indeed. Couldn’t have put it better myself. Puts all these petty concerns about a park into some perspective does it not?
Oops! Did I say petty? What a slip. Of course I meant to say “vital, epoch-changing”.
Overall, Daryl at 853 put it pretty well back in December – while NOGOE may have a point, the more they go on, the less convincing they sound.
http://853blog.wordpress.com/2008/12/05/last-nights-greenwich-olympics-consultation-meeting/
The closure of the park may be petty to you but its a vital green space for recreation for a lot of families in Greenwich. . Also I am nothing to do with NOGOE, just a Greenwich resident that happens to think that open, accessible spaces are important in local communities.
When the park’s closed on winter evenings I do a lot of training on Blackheath, situated right next door to Greenwich Park. Maybe others, given three years’ notice, might also be able to find this hidden-away location.
Lets hope they can find it given how useless we all are at research. Once there parents can relax knowing that their kids are safely hemmed in by the A2. That is assuming of course that parents can all get there – some have prams and pesky stuff like that. Maybe the childrens playground could also be temporarily sited on Blackheath too?
Really, this time I’m outta here. It’s like arguing with a room full of Andrew Gilligans. I need a shower.