Olympic Fun and Games

‘Urban Governance: Exploring the Political Legacy of London 2012’ was the grand title for a debate organised by the Olympic Park Legacy Company at Kings University. Except it wasn’t really a debate: it was more of a marketing exercise. Richard Brown, head of strategy at the OPLC, Neale Coleman of the GLA, and Charlie Forman from Hackney, whose job it is to promote the Olympics (or more specifically how the Olympics will benefit Londoners in the long term) all agreed that the political legacy will be fantastic: new, affordable homes; regeneration; and a new park and funky venues. Britain has learnt from the Millennium Dome catastrophe, and is ahead of the game: Coleman said Sydney didn’t have a legacy company until 18 months AFTER the games. Probably they are right. But I would have found it more convincing if there was a contrarian on stage – or even in the audience. They had put up uber-sceptic Mike Raco, an academic at UCL, but his convoluted points were batted away swiftly by Coleman. This was mainly an academic crowd however: I expect the public debates to be more lively.