please empty your brain below
2012 was peak Britain.

Still Anon | 27.07.22 - 7:39 a.m. | #

As a local resident and worker I knew the pre games site well. Unless you had good reason to go into the area you wisely kept well away. Years of industrial dumping, crime waves and and a chaotic topography caused by the winding waterways and railways it was not a welcoming place.
I too have been watching with amazement how the whole thing came together, the soiled washed and the pylons came down.

I was then lucky enough to get a plum job that meant I was inside the stadium - woking alongside the LOCOG team, planning and putting on the games - the most wonderful time of my working life.

I somehow how stumbled across your blog and have been back every day since. It has captured almost everything I have experienced both in and out of the park - great work.

John G | 27.07.22 - 8:11 a.m. | #

Just in case anyone is interested - and hasn't already stumbled on it there is a book of Homer Sykes photos called Before The Blue Wall which documents the site before redevelopment (the first photos date from 2006). It was published by Fistful of Books earlier this year.

Joan | 27.07.22 - 8:24 a.m. | #

Well, quite. The euphoria of 2012 was followed by 2016 and 2020. Not Rio and Tokyo, but the referendum and the exit. How did that ever happen?

Meanwhile, this year Munich has been marking 50 years since its Olympics. Fortunately no similar security incidents at subsequent Games.

How successful have we been at building a “fresh inclusive community” as a legacy of the Olympics in Stratford?

Andrew | 27.07.22 - 8:25 a.m. | #

I love reading about the changes to the QEOP and the Lower Lea Valley on this blog.

I do hope you run with the 10th anniversary theme for the rest of the week.

Hadders | 27.07.22 - 8:27 a.m. | #

Do please keep documenting the many and never ending changes and developments.

Barry Coppock | 27.07.22 - 9:04 a.m. | #

I moved into my home on Fish Island in December 1999 well before the idea of bidding for the Olympics was even thought about, in those day you could wander or cycle along the towpaths and the Greenway without seeing a single other person and not a single boat would be seen on the canals, I am still living at the same address and how things have changed. I was delighted when I first went to look at the plans for the Olympic site but my delight was short lived when I received a compulsory purchase order on my home and this was further compounded by the fact that all that was planned to replace it was a temporary Car park, thankfully the demolition of my home never took place as the site was redesigned and shrunk down in size a little so the CPO was withdrawn and eventually instead of losing my home I was located a mere 50 metres from the boundary.

fishislandskin | 27.07.22 - 9:29 a.m. | #

At 14:30 ten years ago today, I started my 5th shift (of 12) as a Gamesmaker driving BMWs around East London.

I was based at the Olympic Park Depot (where the Unite Student Flats "Stratford One" are now) and our cars were in the 'John Lewis' car park.

My car was empty for most of the time, and I spent far too many hours just waiting at Eton Manor!

My most important passenger was the Deputy Medical Officer for the IOC.

Another highlight was being in the Depot whilst the opening ceremony took place and seeing the Red Arrows, and the 'Queen' jumping out of a helicopter!

Although not as exciting as I thought it would be, it was an experience I will always remember.

John Simmons | 27.07.22 - 9:34 a.m. | #

What a fantastic blog DG from someone who was on the ground.
I love the posts about 2012 Olympic Games and the aftermath.
London really did plan for a legacy after ther games, something which few other cities managed

Michael | 27.07.22 - 9:44 a.m. | #

I think I first came to your blog around 2013/14... And have more or less been a daily reader ever since.

I've just skimmed through the links at the bottom of your post and such nostalgia! Looking forward to reading through them all and reminiscing.

BP | 27.07.22 - 9:49 a.m. | #

It's been fascinating reading about the changes to the vicinity since the games, both good and bad, so well done.

I really pleased that I made the most of the Olympic games, and bought shed loads of tickets to all sorts of sports I wouldn't normally see, so got to experience most of the Olympic venues. One I didn't was the Velodrome, which I'll get to experience on Friday with the Commonwealth games, a fitting 10th anniversary return to the Park!

Mikey C | 27.07.22 - 10:36 a.m. | #

Compared to the putative tumbleweed version, the legacy of the Games and the Olympic Park has clearly been a success. But it seems an all-too-predictable shame that the proposed integrated, mixed community of residential areas (remember, the Games were originally championed by Livingstone, not Johnson, who arrived when they were ‘oven-ready’) was subverted and dismissed by over-indulged developers and the usual flat-building suspects, all given an easy ride by planners and central government (cf the current destruction of Euston and mega over-development facilitated by HS2).

Labourer | 27.07.22 - 10:48 a.m. | #

New forever replaces old - from Georgian swathes replacing fields, to blocky brick boxes which, no doubt, will one day be considered the charm and soul of an area as it's about to be swept away by something new and better!

It seems that that every time they bang on about a sporting legacy, it always falls short of the dream, but if the view is that what remains is better than what came before, then the 2012 Olympics has been a huge success.
Good memories of our last hurrah before it all went rapidly downhill!

I for one am glad you were willing to share your local transformation with us, and continue to do so in the wider London sense.

Cornish Cockney | 27.07.22 - 11:10 a.m. | #

I was devastated by the loss of that green space on the West side of the park. Every time I came to the park it served as a gathering space and a picnic spot. The park is lovely, but but the open space there tied it together as a perfect space to spend the day. If the rest of the park is going to take so long to complete it's a bit disappointing that the sections closest to the centre are going up first.

TR | 27.07.22 - 11:13 a.m. | #

I worked for LOCOG for 2 years prior to the games and then during the games themselves. This time 10 years ago I was in blazing row with a sporting federation as the ripped up all our previously agreed plans and just decided to make it up as they went along. LOCOG got the blame as 'COGs cease to exist after the games so are easy to blame.

I spent April - September at work every day, my record being at work for 40 out of 48 hours at one point when the chips were down. I got shouted at by spectators when I warned them not to walk under a something we were dismantling, shouted at by sports officials when the demanded things that couldn't be done, shouted at by Games Makers when they realised they had to do some work, shouted at by my boss when someone else didn't take H&S seriously, shouted at by a cyclist who wanted to ride down a road we has closed... Basically there was a lots of shouting, severe lack of sleep, the pressure to perform and the most unimaginable amounts of stress.

I'd do it again tomorrow at the drop of a hat. It was an amazing job and I've been trying to find something as fun for the last 10 years!

LOCOG Alumni | 27.07.22 - 1:42 p.m. | #

My younger son was also a BMW driver and was responsible for driving the head of the Taiwanese delegation to where ever he wanted to go (which included shopping in Harrods). As he was given a pass he was able to watch the action at most of the venues, including inside the stadium on Super Saturday (while my wife and I stood outside listening to the roars of the crowd as we had tickets for the swimming that evening). He had the time of his life, when he applied to be a Gamesmaker volunteer he had assumed he would be one of those directing the spectators. To cap it all the head of the Taiwanese delegation owned hotels in Taipei and offered my son free accommodation which he took up a few years later during a Far East holiday.

JohnC | 27.07.22 - 2:56 p.m. | #

Here on the south side of the river there was a huge campaign against using Greenwich Park for the horsey events. It would be ruined forever, they said.

It wasn't.

AlanBG | 27.07.22 - 4:06 p.m. | #

A decade of residentialisation (great word). The next decade looks to be one of residensification.

More than happy to have you as or guide to the evolving legacy of the London Olympics.

Rod | 27.07.22 - 5:47 p.m. | #

Thanks for all the Olympic posts - you prompted many trips to walk round the boundary fences and watch the development happening. Your writing made me want to go there and see for myself! Thank you, a week of Olympic Park posts sounds great.

Lorraine | 27.07.22 - 6:42 p.m. | #

I was living in the UK at the time of the 2012Games but moved back to Canada just months later. The Games were a triumph and it's great to observe, even from this distance, how much of the promised legacy has actually been delivered. It's a shame the cost of staging it was a multiple of what the organizers initially claimed, but I guess that's all forgotten now.

James Webber | 27.07.22 - 6:56 p.m. | #

It's been fascinating watching the park grow and evolve - from a wander round in 2007 (spurred on by posts on your blog); to working in the Broadcast Centre during the games; to working in the same building for most of the last 9 years, with a brief sojourn to another IBC at another Olympics along the way. From what I can tell, PyoeongChang's venues haven't quite gone to such good use.

I've got mixed feelings about the legacy elements in London though - s106 agreements mean that employers in the park have quotas of school leavers from the local boroughs, and I know plenty who've managed to work their way from there into fairly senior roles; but at the same time today I had a (quite skilled) member of my team who's being priced out of his rented flat in Stratford. I'd love to see more affordable housing as part of the park, and it's disappointing to see it dismissed by everyone involved as 'nothing to do with me, guv'.

martin | 27.07.22 - 7:57 p.m. | #

I've worked my way through the entries from that fortnight and I'm pretty sure that my first visit to the blogs here was on Aug 5th when I was looking for advice on entering the park from an alternative station to Stratford (I used Leyton). Since then I'm sure I've read almost every daily blog on the day of its publication with just a handful 24 hours later.

David | 27.07.22 - 8:30 p.m. | #

A lovely post.

Like others, I first stumbled across you during those magical Olympic days, and have kept coming back to be entertained and educated by your wit, erudition and eye for the unusual.

Just like the story of London, the story of the Olympic park keeps on evolving, and I look forward to hearing your take on the chapters to come!

Tom | 27.07.22 - 9:04 p.m. | #

Incredible post - I really hope all yours words are somehow retained somewhere and people can still read in years and decades time.

David | 28.07.22 - 9:32 a.m. | #

The consultation documents in your November 2003 post is well worth a retrospective read (access via the Internet archive!)

James Scantlebury | 28.07.22 - 10:46 p.m. | #











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