London 2012 blog

This week has marked the end of the statutory consultation period on the Olympic Planning applications and as expected the emails and letters giving comments have been flying in thick and fast.

At one point on Monday our email enquiries inbox completely jammed because of the size and amount of documents being sent. We've received going on for 300 responses so far, with quite a pile still to go through, count and book in.

During the consultation the Planning Decisions Team spent 8 days standing with our exhibition in local shopping centres and libraries in the four Boroughs talking to lots of people and answering questions. We also gave presentations to councillors and officers in the four Boroughs as well as at various community events.

Towards the end of the process we reckoned we'd done 16 events in 23 days. My knees certainly knew it from all the standing up.

As you'd expect there was a wide range of reactions - from those who don't like the Olympic concept to those who think it's fantastic - but overall the reaction was positive, just like during the pre-application stage.

Obviously there are a number of individuals and organisations whose businesses, homes or facilities are directly affected by the Olympic proposals and who have to move off the site either temporarily or permanently and who have detailed objections and concerns.

But beyond these there were a number of emerging issues that we'll be discussing with the applicants and thinking about how to tackle them.

Many of these relate to the construction period and cover worries about noise, dust and traffic for example. There were lots of comments about jobs and how local businesses and individuals could get involved.

Lots of people wanted to know about the legacy and what the sports facilities and park would be like after the Games, who would use them and manage them and what would be built on the development sites created after the Games. People wanted to know when and how these legacy plans would be drawn up.

Overall it was very positive and people were keen to get information and have the chance to ask questions. I felt that the exhibitions especially helped people to start to understand which bits of the park were nearest to where they live or work, where the park is situated and to start to get to grips with its sheer size.

For the Planning Decisions Team though, this is just the start of many such consultation periods and I'm sure that people will have plenty more to say when we start asking them what they think of the detailed designs of some of the venues.

We'll be out and about quite a lot over the next two years or so.

Meanwhile we've got lots of letters and emails to read and a detailed analysis to do because every comment is important.