The National Lottery’s contribution

http://www.culture.gov.uk/images/publications/DCMS_GOE_QR_Q1_Feb_2012.pdf

Mindmap: Olympics who is involved?

When will the bailiffs come knocking?

(image:EGfocus)

The national Lottery distributors have invested £625millions in order to buy the land and for the creation and implementation of the Olympic Park. John Penrose the Olympics minister has said ‘The development of the Olympic Park is a long-term programme with land sales due to take place over a period of 25 years’ and

A lot of the original agreements have been changed over the past seven years since London has secured the Games. There have been a series of shifts in power due to increased budgets and increased lending. It has now been stated in the most recent quarterly report published by the DCMS that the lottery will finally get their money for the Olympic Park through the receipts and the sale of the land, but how long will this take? Penrose has said ‘the distributors should start to receive payments in the mid-2020s’. Did the national lottery think it would take this long?

This change has been said to be a direct result from the devolution of Olympic legacy responsibilities and the creation of the Mayoral development agency the London legacy development corporation and the Olympic park legacy company. This means that the contributors will benefit earlier than expected, after the first £223million of receipts from the sale and profits made from the park have been allocated to the Mayor. Then the next £900million of the receipts will then be shared 25% to the GDA and a 75% share to finally repay the National Lottery’s contribution.

This method is all subjective with the current economic climate as it is are the committees making allegiances as they feel that the Olympic Park won’t be sold for its net worth?

Just like the house prices, are National Olympic Parks being sold for under what they are worth?

http://www.london.gov.uk/moderngov/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=7321

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201212/cmhansrd/cm120227/text/120227w0002.htm

http://www.parliament.uk/deposits/depositedpapers/2012/DEP2012-0225.pdf

Rental and restoration

Rental and restoration.

The National Lottery will only get it’s money back that it gave to the LDA to by the land teh Olympic Park stands with the receipts of the land sale. Will we get another Millennium dome scenario do I see an O2 Olympic Park in the future?

Looking into how the Park was funded there have been a series of incomes and outcomes in order to establish the sale of the land. Through a freedom of information request requested by Mr C Charman to the Hackney bourough council it has come to light that the LDA have given the council a mere £2million as compensation of the loss of the East Marsh or as they put it

‘The LDA agreed to contribute a maximum of £2m towards the Council’s Hackney Marshes improvement programme and £360,000 for the provision of improved football pitches’.

Hackney Council do not see this as hush money but see it as a way of developing the improved football pitches and other surrounding areas of the East Marshes. So this temporary loss of public land from one authority to another has cost £2million out of the budget why would a sum of £2.36 million have to be paid on top of the sale of land? Is this the rental price for the land from May 2011 to August 2013? Are hackney willing for it to be used in exchange of the money and the ‘free’ redevelopment they would get?

‘LDA will put into an account a sum of money equivalent to the cost of returning the fields to playing condition.  This money is either returned to the LDA when Hackney is satisfied the fields are in a suitable condition, or is used by Hackney to do the works in default’

So does this mean that the legacy of the Olympic Games will be the burden of more restoration work? They will have been given the money to fund it but the time and effort is still substantial and the disruption to the ‘sports players’ who use the field? I thought that the main legacy of the games was so that young children and athletes are encouraged to continue with their sport?

Picture by EGfocus

‘This is Great Britain’… or this is just small print and jargon?

LOCOG pride themselves in finishing the Olympic park on time and in budget however where has this budget come from and what other expenditure has been paid out to authorities to keep this quiet?

I keep finding small print within the most recent DCMS quarterly review, the ODA’s anticipated financial cost has seen an increase in £18millions in order to finish landscaping the park to improve crowd flow and open up more areas of the Park’ but by using the words ‘during Games-time’ that isn’t included in cost of the park as it is seen as an amendment.

I feel totally misled when trying to understand this financial spending review and forecasts to the London 2012 games. Seen in the recent quarterly report published by the DCMS £333millions has been transferred back from the ODA now to the OPLC as the recent duties have been altered and the Olympic Park Legacy company is now solely in charge of the well fair and legacy of the park this has saved a total of £31 million it states in the report

‘This saving is the result of efficiencies the OPLC can achieve by integrating this scope with its existing plans, and the different VAT arrangements that the OPLC is subject to’.

I thought the ‘passing the buck’ was in relation to nobody wanting to deal with the legacy left behind but perhaps it is a tax fiddle? Can LOCOG just create and disband as many committees and organisation’s as it feels necessary in order to save that extra million pounds? LOCOG park operations have been pitched at £67million and is set to be one of the very few aspects of the games that will be set on budget.

Thank goodness for the £528 contingency that’s all I say.

Jargon buster

AFC =anticipated financial cost

SR =spending review

MOU= Olympic Funding Memorandum of Understanding

PSFP= Public Sector Funding Package

Visual representation of legacy committees

A visual representation to show how this responsibility has been passed from pillar to post.

Has the ever increasing budget of the Games affected the legacy of infrastructures like the Olympic Park?

Olympic research engaging with activists

As I have only just started researching the London Olympics 2012 I feel that all the information I consume is becoming a constant battle. Who is right? What is just a part of PR campaigns?  And who cherry picks the information to report about?

I am using our twitter feed @Olympiclegacy12 to gain followers and to provide information to people who are interested in life after the Olympics. I am focusing on the Olympic Park and feel that a lot of the data that I have obtained is merely a part of the Olympic Movement. The London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) is responsible for preparing and staging the 2012 Games; however they are a nongovernmental company who disband after the games. What legacy do they leave behind and do they conduct the games with that in mind?

I have discussed the ever changing boards and committees that are involved in earlier posts however when looking for *correct* data I forgot about the other industries involved.

I have read through many brochures and policy documents from the official committees however are they just constantly putting a positive spin on the Olympic Games and the cultural meaning it embodies?

Through the twitter account I have sparked some interesting discussion with an activist of the Games who contributes to and advocates Games Monitor  this website focus’ on debunking Olympic myths. He spoke to me about how the land the Olympic Park was built on is being marketed as industrial wasteland however it used to be allotments and regularly used cycle path. How has this slipped the media? Is there a small amount of truth to be able to run this story? He was extremely passionate about the fact I was confirming this and contacted me personally.

When looking through the data I had forgotten about the people who are against the Games and their environment and day to day lives are destroyed by its presence. However when looking through the negative articles and * truths* around the games again I feel that the activists and conservationists have a lot in common with Olympic PR; they both want to get across that one message the message that they wholly believe to be right.

My own Freedom of Information request

I feel that there are a lot of brochures and reams and reams of ‘information’ published online and by the The London 2012 Organising Committee (LOCOG) and other commitees however I can’t find the breakdown of costs for the Park. I also can’t find reliable valid information about the committees that are put in place for the legacy of this area.

So I have decided to request this information from the Olympic Park legacy company.

Hopefully I have been detailed within my request and excuses and exemptions won’t be used.

Lets wait and see.

Passing the buck: the dreaded responsibility of the legacy of LONDON2012

Ever since London won the bid for the Olympic 2012 games seven years ago there has certainly been a great frenzy around the cost and development of the facilities. Can we handle the event? Can we handle the tourism? How will we afford it?

However understandably, as the games haven’t even started yet, the public haven’t been informed much on the aftermath. Who will be responsible for the maintenance of the huge buildings and areas that have been created in order to host the game.

There has been a lot of controversy around the stadium however people are yet again forgetting about the £250 million project of the Olympic Park. Yes this project was delivered on time and to budget and that is seen as a success to many people however people keep forgetting about the legacy. As the budget for the games is rising, people are becoming more irate and starting to look at alternative ways in which the money could be spent. The park has created a lot of jobs for the people of London and Great Britain however it doesn’t stop here, legacy programmes are also predicted to reach £826million and the Olympic park legacy company is looking to cost £300million.

So who will be responsible for the legacy of the park?

This has been widely debated and I feel that no-body want to take job. There have been a range of companies and committees linked to the job ever changing as the games draw closer.
There is the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) who will be in charge of the events in and around the time of the games they are the main governing body and will monitor the park during this period. The Olympic delivery agency (ODA) also had contracted objectives of making sure the projects set standards for sustainable development.

The plot thickens, the legacy of the park was handed to the London development agency (LDA) who were asked for their involvement in the after math of the games. This committee is in charge of the growth and maintenance, making sure that London benefits from the games for years to come through industry tourism and other aspects of day to day life.
Initially the responsibility of just the Park was given to the Olympic Park legacy Company (OPLC) created in 2009 and they have put in place some really good strategies for after the games. However on Wednesday 8^th February 2012 the Mayor of London announced that this issue was too big for this committee and with the involvement of the Mayoral Development Corporation (MDA) they can have more control with a wider remit. In order to focus entirely on the legacy of this Olympic park and gave this responsibility over to the London Legacy Development Corporation and the park will be renamed the Queen Elizabeth Park in 2014 with another grand opening.
After years of passing this around from committee to committee The London Legacy Development Corporation will start the new projects from April 1^st 2012. The legacy has been doomed and what a fitting day to start this process. This shows to me that the legacy of this park was never really thought through and as the budget of the games keeps changing I feel this was put to the bottom of the list. So many committees are involved are there too many cooks in the kitchen?

The problem of the Park’s legacy is finally secured and on the same day this was confirmed Baroness Ford announced that she would step down as chair of the Olympic Park legacy after the London2012 games. This cements the extent of the work that is ahead of this infant committee or can they not continue without their chair? Has she left as she feels the burden is now too large or just as she feels that after many years this project needs a fresh outlook with a new committee put in place?

However to me, doesn’t this show that again the legacy certainly is just an afterthought?

FOI requests :what are they and what are they used for?

In order to find original data that hasn’t been published or discussed within the media a helpful way is to issue a Freedom of Information request. It is legal for members of the public and journalists to requested access to information that is held by public authorities. This could result in aspects of their work being published in newspapers or online if the journalist feels it has a news worthy angle.

I have looked into other Freedom of Information requests too see if they can give me some data in which I will critcally analyse and could be a lead for a story.

However the agencies and public authorities can refuse your request due to time constraints and if the information could harm an individual or organisation or due to security matters. It is also within their right to show you where to obtain this information if they do not hold it.

I looked at this request in order to obtain data from Camden council about the Olympic and Paralympic funding. This is an example of a way to gain origianl data however as there wasn’t much on the legacy of the Park I decided to create a Freedom of Information request of my own using the site http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/