London 2012 blog

...There goes the charabang
Looks like I'm gonna be stuck here the whole summer
Well what a bummer
I can think of a lot worse places to be
Like down in the street
Or down in the sewer
Or even on the end of a skewer
The Stranglers, 1977

Don't let it be said that the Sustainability team miss out on all the fun. On Tuesday we were guests of Thames Water's Sewer Week; invited to a guided tour of Abbey Mills pumping station and a walk along the old Bazelgette sewers at Hackney Wick.

Suited and booted, ready to go down the sewer:

Read more of “A cultural experience...down the sewer”

We had the second annual conference of the All Party 2012 Group today and we shared the occasion with the Industry and Parliament Trust
(Fellow: yours truly). In 3.5 hours we had speakers from the London Development Agency (Tom Russell), the Cultural Olympiad (Sarah Weir), Much Wenlock (Chris Cannon), WheelPower (Robin Courage), Security (Robert Raine and Tarique Ghaffur from the Met Police), Tessa Jowell and Seb Coe; so a pretty amazing line up.

Robin Courage touched many nerves when he said that no Government money had been forthcoming to bring Stoke Mandeville (where the original Games for athletes with a disability began in 1948, leading to the worldwide movement now known as the Paralympic Games) up-to-speed (he helped raise £10 million). Now - almost because his surname is courage - he is leading a team to raise £5 million to provide 2012 sporting wheelchairs for 2012...

Meanwhile the Much Wenlock Olympian Society again spelled out that it was William Penny Brookes not Pierre de Coubertin who was responsible for the modern Olympic movement (as indeed he was).

Read more of “Parliament goes Olympic”

Engaging with your critics is sometimes a difficult thing to do. As a former resident of the Clays Lane estate who had been 'decanted' or, as I prefer to say, evicted to make way for the Olympics I had been emailing the ODA and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) for some time with questions about the Eastway Cycle Track, a large area of open space next to my former home where I used to enjoy walking but which is contaminated with industrial pollutants and even some radioactive material and is now being remediated prior to construction of sports facilities.

I can't say I had been entirely happy with the responses. The ODA invited me to meet Lawrence Waterman, in charge of health and safety for the ODA, Richard Jackson, the ODA's environment manager and Giorgia Sharpe, community relations manager to discuss my concerns.

Read more of “The challenge of dust emissions on the Olympic Park”

My relationship with the whole London 2012 project started before London won the Games - we were helping Neil (in LOCOG’s Community relations team) get in touch with Chinese community, getting support for the bid. Since then, I have sat on the London 2012 Forum, discussing issues with people from all the various communities in London.

The beauty for us of course is that this year the Games are in China, in Beijing, which gives a bit of extra flavour in our relationship with LOCOG: we have an even greater opportunity to build the relationship and share ideas and information - as we did yesterday. We were asked if we could help raise Chinese cultural awareness among London 2012 staff - especially for those who are going to Beijing programmes to get first-hand Games experience.

We were of course delighted to help and yesterday saw it all come together, in an informal (yet hopefully informative) education day.

Read more of “Bringing China to London 2012”