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Greenwich news and information

Lord Coe Responds To Greenwich Critics

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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?

Zara Phillips Questions Greenwich Park Olympic Venue

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Zara Phillips has used an interview with The Times to question whether Greenwich Park is the right venue for London 2012's equestrian events.

Phillips, who is the Queen's eldest granddaughter and reigning Eventing World Champion, said that Windsor or Burghley would be better venues than Greenwich Park, with her main concern being the lack of equestrian legacy. She told the paper:

What is annoying is that they put something there and then take it all down afterwards... What's the point of that?

Why don't you do it to a space that can be used with a legacy, not Greenwich Park where people walk their dogs? I thought that was the whole point of bidding for the Games.

Phillips was awarded an MBE in 2007 for her services to equestrianism and is hoping to represent Team GB at London 2012 on her horse, Toytown.

Greenwich Society Votes Down Park Protestor’s Motion

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A Special General Meeting of the Greenwich Society was held on January 29th to vote on a motion put forward by member Michael Goldman, who is also the Chairman of NOGOE. The motion put before the SGM was that:

That this Society will oppose the construction or use of a course in Greenwich Park for the purpose of the cross country event to be held as part of the 2012 London Olympic Games.

The motion was defeated by 86 votes to 58.

A second motion stating "that constructive dialogue the LOCOG and the other Olympic organisations is in the best interests of the Society" went unopposed.

NOGOE Attracts Six New High Profile Patrons

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Local pressure group, No to Greenwich Olympic Equestrian Events (NOGOE), has had six new patrons join its campaign to stop the 2012 Equestrian events taking place in Greenwich Park, including the  well known TV historian, Dr David Starkey.

The six new NOGOE patons are:

  • Dr David Starkey (TV Historian)
  • Margaret Tyzack OBE (Award Winning Actress)
  • Dame Jennifer Jenkins (President of the Ancient Monuments Society)
  • Blake Morrison (Writer and Poet)
  • Jonathan Sumption QC (Barrister)
  • Sir Willard White CBE (Opera singer)

Interview with Len Duvall, GLA Member for Greenwich & Lewisham

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Len Duvall
Len Duvall OBE - Greater London Assembly Member for Greenwich and Woolwich, and former head of Greenwich Council.

"Greenwich town centre isn't my manor," says Len Duvall, the borough's man on the London Assembly. “I'm a Woolwich boy."
 
We're sitting in City Hall, and talking about the town downriver where he lives. The son of two generations of artillery gunners, Duvall was born and raised near the Arsenal and grew up as industry in the area drifted away.
 
“It’s a place I know well,” he tells me. “I used to hop along the embankment there and play in what was one of the biggest adventure playgrounds going, the ex-Arsenal site.”
 
Eventually Len’s playground made way for the concrete high rises of modern Thamesmead. Designed for the car, no railways were ever built into its plans and many of the town’s roads did not even have pavements beside them. So while older, more connected parts of the city were able to survive the loss of heavy industry, this new train-free part of town was isolated and vulnerable from the start.
 
“Of course there is a problem with isolation there.” Duvall admits “But it has always taken more to create a job in the South East generally than anywhere else in London and the reason for that is transport. South East London has always been the Cinderella of transport and that’s why we’ve had to fight for what we’ve got.”
 
While it's true to say that the town centre and the Peninsula have benefited from the links brought by the DLR and the Jubilee Line, other parts of the borough have arguably been left behind.
 
“Look, I live in Woolwich and I don’t want it to be the poorer cousin of the rest of the borough” he insists “but getting what we have got hasn’t been a given. We’ve had to fight for every bit of it and I’ve still got the scars from that.”
 
For Duvall those fights have led to the recent opening of the new DLR station at Woolwich and to the promise of Crossrail to come. But while these developments will undoubtedly boost some parts of the borough, other parts will not necessarily get their share of the growth,
 
“Of course it was inevitable that the development at the Dome and the Peninsula would draw resources into it,” he says.
 
“But if you want any kind of extra infrastructure you have to advocate for it, and I don’t think Boris quite gets that.”

“I think that what Boris did in cancelling the Thames Gateway Bridge was criminal” 

He’s talking now about the Thames Gateway Bridge. The crossing, which would have linked Thamesmead to North London, was supported by four of the five borough councils directly affected. However, with the planning inspector, green campaigners and Bexley council all opposed to it, Boris decided to pull out. The decision has left Duvall and Greenwich Council angry:
 
“I think that what Boris did in cancelling the Thames Gateway Bridge was criminal”  he says.
 
“There was a lot of support for the bridge, but there were two or three roads in Bexley which were opposed to it. Boris could have dealt with those issues but he didn’t face up to it. And you know one of the defining things about being a leader is being able to say no to your mates and so far Boris just hasn’t been able to do that. ”
 
Yet Len is otherwise warm in his praise for the Mayor. He says that unlike some he “never believed the stuff about him being a racist toff” and tells me how impressed he has been with his work rate.
 
“He’s definitely hard working,” he says. “I’m not sure he started out like that and I think that was one of the criticisms against him, that he was ‘lazy Boris’ but he’s certainly putting the hours in now.”
 
Despite this praise, his relationship with Boris has not been an easy one. Appointed by Ken Livingstone to chair the Police Authority,  Len’s position was handed over to Boris Johnson last year. Following his now famous intervention in the Damian Green case, Boris and Len very publicly came to blows. The result of these exchanges, was an official complaint made by Duvall to the Standards committee.
 
This complaint, which has caused Len to come under criticism himself, is still under investigation.  But despite this ongoing controversy, he insists that they remain on good terms.
 
“The thing about Boris, is that he always wants to be liked” he says laughing.
 
“He wants to know that we can still talk to each other. You’d think that he would be more worried about this investigation, but he’s worrying that we can still get on.”
 
For now though, Duvall's main task is in representing his constituency. And in the run-up to the Olympics, what happens in the borough is increasingly coming into the public eye. I ask him whether he thinks people are right to be worried about the Olympics.
 
“Of course there are legitimate issues about having the Olympics at Greenwich Park and I think the Council need to work harder at addressing those.”

"Greenwich Park isn’t just for Greenwich residents"

“But I think some of those have to be challenged. And the issue is that Greenwich Park isn’t just for Greenwich residents. It’s a London-wide park, it’s a Royal Park, and it’s an international park.”
 
I ask him what he thinks about the press coverage that the issue has received so far.
 
“I think we have to be careful about having an Andrew Gilligan knee-jerk reaction to it” he says, referring to articles in the Evening Standard and elsewhere. “Because if you look at where it happened in Hong Kong, there was disruption but now the site is back in action.”
 
“And look, I don’t live in Greenwich, but I use the park a lot and the last thing that I want to do is to wreck it. Politicians don't get up wanting to make things worse for people.”
 
As I gather my things together, I turn and take a look at the pictures on his office walls. Among the campaign posters for the Labour party and the Anti Nazi League is a framed picture of Greenwich and the Thames Waterfront.
 
For those of us living in the borough, this is just the everyday view of our ‘manor’, but for the rest of the world it will become one of the major views of the UK.
 
Quite what having it as a backdrop will mean for the flower beds of Greenwich Park remains to be seen.  But beyond their margins lies a wider borough far more in need of Duvall's attention and care.

Horse Manure

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THE report we've all been waiting for is out. Quietly, just before the holidays, the much-trumpeted KPMG review into the Olympic use of Greenwich Park was published on the London 2012 website. And my goodness, it's convincing.

It's twelve pages long, of which precisely one page is about the Park. Including the headings and titles, this page contains 215 words. I've read more detailed analyses on the back of the average cornflakes packet.

KPMG's conclusion amounts to all of 45 words, which I quote in full: "Based on the documentation and high-level costings provided by LOCOG, the costs of providing an alternative Modern Pentathlon facility together with temporary accommodation mean that it is unlikely that an alternative location could be delivered for a lower cost than the Greenwich Park option."

Note the first part of that sentence: "Based on the documentation and high-level costings provided by LOCOG." According to the preface, this study lasted from 12 August to 9 December. Can it really be true that in all that time, all they have accomplished is to read and repeat the claims made by LOCOG, a party with a clear vested interest in the status quo?

Yes, it can. The preface continues: "In preparing the report, our primary source has been internal management information and representations made to us by management of the ODA, LOCOG and the Government Olympic Executive. We do not accept responsibility for such information, which remains the responsibility of the respective management...We have not...sought to establish the reliability of the sources by reference to other evidence.

"This engagement is not...conducted in accordance with any generally accepted [accounting] assurance standards and consequently no assurance opinion is expressed. We draw your attention to the limitations in the information available to us. We have had limited access to the management of the alternative venues considered or to other third parties.

"We must emphasise that the realisation of the forecasts prepared by the ODA and LOCOG is dependent on the continuing validity of the assumptions on which they are based...We accept no responsibility for the realisation of the projections...we do not accept responsibility for the underlying data."

I can't think of many other occasions where an official report has been preceded by a warning that its contents are essentially worthless - a warning that lasts, moreover, about four times longer than the conclusions it pre-emptively dismisses. In their tortured, self-exculpatory prose, one can sense KPMG's entirely justified sensitivity to criticisms by me and others that their work has no real independent or analytic value at all.

Let us quote from the part where the methods of the study are described. "KPMG's approach principally comprised... considering internal documentation made available by ODA...[and] LOCOG...discussions with key personnel from the ODA, LOCOG and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport...discussions with a small number of third parties approved by the ODA, LOCOG and/or the DCMS."

Costings used in the report - both to support the existing venues and dismiss their potential alternatives - were derived from "high-level cost estimates...developed by the ODA." Incredibly, "several of the operational costs were derived from the Bid Book costings, as the best available source of operational cost estimates, inflated to 2012 prices."

The Bid Book, as its name suggests, is the document prepared in 2005 to convince the IOC to award us the Olympics. You may remember that at that stage we were being assured that the Games could be delivered for £2.4 billion - roughly a quarter of the present figure. It is quite extraordinary that KPMG is still working on the basis of numbers - even if only for the operational expenses of the Games - from that era.

Any and all actual figures themselves, by the way, are blanked out from the published version of the report for reasons of "commercial confidentiality" - as is even, hilariously, the inflation multiplier used by KPMG to bring them up to 2012 prices. Each venue has a section headed "Cost Issues" which consists, in each case, of a large blacked-out blob, brilliantly expressing the sheer infantilism of British secrecy.

The whole KPMG saga reminds me a little of that scene in Blackadder Goes Forth when General Melchett is harrumphing with pleasure over a two-foot square piece of mud on a table in his office, representing territory gained by Britain at the Battle of the Somme. "What's the scale?" asks Blackadder. "One-to-one," replies Captain Darling.

What I mean by this is that the exercise is such an obvious travesty as to be entirely pointless. If they'd hoped it would convince anyone, they should have tried a little harder to make it look like a serious piece of work.

The report may be short, but it could have been even shorter. Forget 45 words, LOCOG could have cut it down to just 16: "We don't care what you think, and we're going to do exactly what we always wanted."

Olympic Gridlock

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NOT CONTENT with picking our pockets and lying to us about the amount, not content with making absurd promises that will never be kept, not content with putting at risk our priceless park, the people behind the London Olympics are also proposing to close down the rest of Greenwich as well.

Or at least, they’re taking the power to do so. They haven’t yet troubled to tell us how they’ll exercise it.

You may not have heard of the “Olympic Route Network.” I don’t blame you if you haven’t; it’s received mysteriously little press coverage. But you will. The ORN is the network of roads on which the Olympic Delivery Authority will be given the power to ban parking and stopping, restrict traffic, close lanes and indeed shut the roads down in their entirety.

Earlier this month, the Department for Transport launched a consultation document outlining which roads would be part of the ORN. In the borough of Greenwich alone, there are 44. They include:

  • the Blackwall Tunnel.
  • All approaches to the tunnel, including the entire A102 from the Greater London boundary to the tunnel and Blackwall Lane.
  • the whole of Greenwich town centre.
  • the entire length of Romney Road and Trafalgar Road.
  • Creek Road.
  • Deptford Church Street.
  • Blackheath Road, Blackheath Hill, Shooters Hill Road (as far as the old Shooters Hill Police Station) and Charlton Way.
  • Woolwich Road and Woolwich Church Street, between Blackwall Lane in Greenwich and Woolwich town centre.
  • Most of Woolwich town centre.
  • The A205 South Circular from Woolwich to the junction with Shooters Hill Road at the old police station.

As well as all the main roads, dozens of residential side streets in Greenwich will be part of the Olympic Route Network. They include:

  • Crooms Hill.
  • Stockwell Street.
  • Park Vista.
  • Nevada Street.
  • Maze Hill.
  • At GMV, West Parkside, John Harrison Way and Edmund Halley Way.
  • Charlton Park Lane.
  • All the Red Route side roads off the A102.

If you want to park a car, drive, cycle or travel on a bus on any of these streets come 2012, you might not be able to. (The bus routes involved, by the way, are the 47, 51, 53, 54, 89, 96, 99, 108, 129, 161, 177, 178, 180, 188, 199, 202, 244, 286, 291, 386, 422, 469, 472, 486, N1, N47 and N89.)

I say might, because exactly what the ODA will do with its draconian powers is still entirely unstated. Rather worrying, perhaps: if the planned restrictions are to be modest, short-term and benign, they’d surely be happy to tell us that.

If this year’s Games in Beijing are any guide, some roads will be closed entirely and others will have special Olympic vehicle-only lanes, the so-called “Zil lanes” in which only the “Olympic Family” can travel.

Most of Beijing’s main roads are multi-lane expressways – and of course half the traffic was banned every day - but even so, as I saw during the Games, the closure of just one lane caused enormous congestion for the unlucky drivers left with the rest of the road.

The only multi-lane roads in Greenwich’s Olympic Route Network are the Blackwall Tunnel itself, the A102 approach road, Woolwich Church Street, Deptford Church Street and a little bit of Shooters Hill Road. Even closing one lane of these would essentially double most drivers’ journey time, or worse.

And for Greenwich’s remaining single-lane roads, all are badly congested for much, if not most, of the working day. If the idea is to prevent the “Olympic family” from being caught in this congestion, there will be no option but to close these roads.

The final unknown about the Olympic Route Network is exactly how long it will last. Just for the duration of the Games? Oh no. The ODA is being given its powers by the middle of 2009, three years before the Olympics, for a reason – so that some restrictions can come in much earlier.

And even though most restrictions will only happen nearer to the Games, there will, the consultation document admits, be “some trials in summer 2011.” The Olympic period itself is surprisingly long; the document describes the Olympic Route Network as “primarily an operational measure for the 60 days of the Games.” Sixty days? But the Games themselves only last for 15 days.

My best guess is this. Outright road closures are likely to be for several hours at a time, perhaps more than once in the day, over a period of about two weeks. Lane closures, on the multi-lane roads, are likely to be full-time over the same period.

But some traffic management measures will start almost as soon as the ODA is granted the power to do them – around the middle of 2009. Greater parking and stopping restrictions will follow. Outright and draconian parking and stopping controls will be imposed for, at the very least, the entire 60-day period mentioned in the consultation document. And if you’re a shop dependent on passing trade – hard cheese.

The damage all this will do to the normal life of Greenwich, and the business of everyone not connected with the Olympics, is of course enormous. Another example of how the Games will do precisely the opposite of what the boosters claim.

Park Shenanigans

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GREENWICH Council's desperation to have the Olympics in Greenwich Park is well known. But has it been playing dirty tricks to fake the appearance of public support for the event? And did it try to rig the recent public consultation meeting on the plans?

The meeting took place at the O2 ten days ago. It was billed as allowing local residents to question Olympic chiefs and Lord Coe, chairman of Locog.

But dozens of residents near the park, many of them opposed to the 2012 plans, were banned from attending on the grounds that they live in the neighbouring borough of Lewisham – even though the borough boundary runs within feet of the park.

Other residents asking to come were told that the meeting was “full,” even as the council continued to urge its own employees to attend.

Dozens of organisations funded by Greenwich Council were given tickets to the meeting and encouraged to make “positive contributions.” Among the speakers at the meeting who apparently spontaneously praised the Games were representatives from the Greenwich Young People’s Council, which is the youth arm of Greenwich Council, and the Greenwich Starting Blocks Trust, a charity owned by the council.

We can reveal that the council has also hired an American PR firm, Vocus, one of whose specialities is creating the appearance of grassroots support for controversial policies. Its chief executive, Rick Rudman, told the Washington Post that “we help large companies and associations build grassroots advocacy groups and do calls to action.”

Vocus’s website says it creates “email campaigns” and “grassroots advocacy programmes… to influence public policy decisions that will affect the sponsoring organisation.” The on-line registration process for attending the Greenwich consultation meeting was routed via Vocus’s web servers.

One of those refused admission, Gillian Stewart, from Blackheath, wrote in a comment on the local 853 blog: “I was told I would not be given a ticket because residents get priority. I live within one mile of the park and I’m not considered a resident? I am not happy.”

Another resident, who asked to remain anonymous, told me: “I can actually see the park from my window. I use it every day and I am very concerned about the Olympic plans, but I am apparently not local enough to have a say at this meeting.”

A Greenwich Liberal Democrat councillor, Paul Webbewood, who attended the meeting, said: “I am not sure why residents were told the meeting was full. Several rows at the side were empty and the council’s internal website was still asking staff to come on the morning of the meeting.”

A spokeswoman for Greenwich Council confirmed that 44 people with addresses outside the borough were refused permission to attend. She said: “This meeting was about the benefits of the Olympics for Greenwich, not about Greenwich Park. I don’t see why my council tax money should be used to pay for people from Lewisham to come to our meetings.”

The spokeswoman said that as many tickets had been issued as there were seats, but admitted that no allowance had been made for ticketholders not turning up. She added that a wide variety of organisations, including some opposed to the council, had been invited to attend and described suggestions that Vocus was mounting a “grassroots advocacy” campaign as “pathetic” and “laughable.”

Michael Goldman, of Nogoe, which campaigns against the equestrian events in the park – and was allowed to attend the meeting – said he was “amazed” that Blackheath residents with a “clear interest” in the Park were kept out. “We don’t need an undercover organisation to get grassroots support,” he said. “We’ve got grassroots support.”

The struggle continues…

Olympic Organisers Hold Public Meeting

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LOCOG held a public meeting on Thursday to answer questions regarding the use of Greenwich Park as an Olympic venue for 2012. The meeting was attended by LOCOG Chief Exec, Paul Deighton, and LOCOG Chair, Lord Sebastian Coe.

Deighton told the meeting - held at Indig02, part of the O2 Arena - that LOCOG are "making provision so that the park is restored to how it was in the first place.".

The next phase of the LOCOG consulation will be an exhibition from Monday to Friday this week at the Greenwich Tourist Information Centre at 46 Greenwich Church Street.

Useful Links:
Excellent summary of the meeting at the 853 blog.
Evening Standard's report on the meeting.

Equestrian Events To Stay At Greenwich Park

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London 2012's Olympic Board has issued a statement confirming that it will not be making changes to the staging of the Equestrian and Modern Pentathlon events which are due to take place in Greenwich Park. The decision comes after they received the findings of KPMG's review in to the Olympic venues.

The statement says:

* None of the alternatives identified by LOCOG and considered by KPMG are in a location which is close enough to accommodate the Modern Pentathlon show jumping event which needs to be located close to the Olympic Park to allow the completion of all five events within one day;
* Any move away from Greenwich would therefore result in a doubling up of facilities with the need to build a separate Modern Pentathlon show-jumping facility close to the Olympic Park;
* In addition, all of the alternative venues would also require the funding of additional accommodation as they are not within IOC guidelines for travel time from the Olympic Village;
* Given these considerations, an alternative location for equestrian and modern pentathlon would not result in lower costs than Greenwich Park.

Useful Links
KPMG's Intellectually Suspect Olympic Site Review
Find out more directly from the 2012 Organisers