Changing Places
From the lunchtime news, and from this article Russell sent me it would seem cash-strapped 2012 officials are considering moving some of the Olympic venues in Greenwich.
But before the park protestors pop any champagne corks, perhaps I should point out that it's the benign gymnastics and badminton tent that's being given the boot - the one that practically no one objected to, not the events that could potentially cause Greenwich park some damage.
The badminton and gym were to have been held in a temporary arena beside the 02 (why aren't they using the 02 itself?) It would have been pretty good - a currently unused site with good transport links and in an area where they couldn't do much more damage to it if they tried. I was actually looking forward to that bit of the London Olympics.
These events are not relocating inside the O2, which would keep it all in the area originally intended, but to Wembley.
Call me a cynic, but this couldn't possibly be because the back of a tent on Greenwich Peninsula wouldn't have made much of a TV backdrop and "saving money" (which is admittedly about forty million) by going to glamorous Wembley will please the world's media, could it? By that jaundiced view, I guess if they were to save some real cash by relocating the Equestrian events to somewhere actually set up for them, they'd have to answer to the TV companies...
The one interesting thing that comes out of this is that when LOCOG tell us that since venues were 'promised' at the Olympic bid, they're somehow set in stone and cannot be changed, they're just not telling the truth...
But before the park protestors pop any champagne corks, perhaps I should point out that it's the benign gymnastics and badminton tent that's being given the boot - the one that practically no one objected to, not the events that could potentially cause Greenwich park some damage.
The badminton and gym were to have been held in a temporary arena beside the 02 (why aren't they using the 02 itself?) It would have been pretty good - a currently unused site with good transport links and in an area where they couldn't do much more damage to it if they tried. I was actually looking forward to that bit of the London Olympics.
These events are not relocating inside the O2, which would keep it all in the area originally intended, but to Wembley.
Call me a cynic, but this couldn't possibly be because the back of a tent on Greenwich Peninsula wouldn't have made much of a TV backdrop and "saving money" (which is admittedly about forty million) by going to glamorous Wembley will please the world's media, could it? By that jaundiced view, I guess if they were to save some real cash by relocating the Equestrian events to somewhere actually set up for them, they'd have to answer to the TV companies...
The one interesting thing that comes out of this is that when LOCOG tell us that since venues were 'promised' at the Olympic bid, they're somehow set in stone and cannot be changed, they're just not telling the truth...
posted by The Greenwich Phantom at
14:37
29 Comments:
I'm still confused as to why they can't use Beckham's Place? I suppose the reason that they won't use the Arena is that the price would be fixed by the Olympic people and therefore the Arena people wouldn't be able to fleece the locals and anyone else interested in seeing our 'Team' compete.
Or am I too cynical???????
I expect the O2 itself will host several major acts during the duration of the Olympic Games.
Well I think we can expect to see a whole lot of revisions coming up as the new economic reality begins to bite.
This should always have been the 'recyclable' Olympics anyway and structured as close as possible on existing venues.
The same report - as mentioned in the Standard - also confirmed that greenwich Park and the Barracks are the best options cost wise.
Somehow the Standard forgot to mention in that piece that they were wrong after all...
I do beleive the O2 Arena is being used for 2 events already and the thought of moving the others across town to Wembley indoor arena just seems crazy talk to me.
I agree that LOCOG's plans are anything but "Transparent" , which just promotes an air of mistrust and cynisism.
am i the only local resident that is actually looking forward to the games being in the park? i dont even have any interest in equestrianism and i'm still excited about it!
no pete - you are not alone - far from it.
All my friends and I also cant wait.
And as I said previously, with the independent report proving that Greenwich park is the most cost effective option for the equestrian events it looks like our joint dream may just become a reality :-)
Roll on 2012
Steve,
When you can provide a link to the report, or any other evidence, I'll believe you're not a plant from LOCOG, Greenwich Council or blah blah blah...Or perhaps KPMG have reported already....and no-one noticed.So - up to you.
You'll need, in the meantime, to learn not to be so obvious....
Steve said -
"The same report - as mentioned in the Standard - also confirmed that greenwich Park and the Barracks are the best options cost wise."
This threw me for a minute - I took this fact/"fact" on board. Ta to Wolfe for challenging it for the disinformation it might be. Yeah, Steve, give us the link to this article please, as even Greenwich Times hasn't reported the news that Greenwich Park is the best option costwise.
If it's genuine, fair enough.....
Here we go the same old attempt to smear people who support the Games to Greenwich. (please note the time of my post...)
I quoted my source - the Evening Standard which if my memory of these boards serves me correctly, all the antis like Rod have quoted time and time again as a "reliable" source of anti park propaganda.
Funny how when they printa story about how the KPMG report will show that Greenwich Park is the best value for money equestrian option they seek to rubbish the very same paper. Oh and they dont push a link to this site to be published.
Perhaps it is not me that needs to be "a little less obvious"....
Phantom - can you please post this standard story which Rod and others seem to have conveniently missed in the paper they normally read from cover to cover...
Dated 9 October
Greenwich "must host" equestrian events
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-olympics/article-23569741-details/Greenwich+%27must+host%27+2012+equestrian+events/article.do
P.s. I look forward to an open apology Rod...
Steve, I'm not smearing you. I'm suggesting that your rather shrill tone chimes with that of those who are desperate to see the park approved as a venue.
Insofar as you firstly mention that the independent report proves that Greenwich is the best cost option - er...it hasn't been published yet. As I pointed out. Comments on the draft are speculation. Thank you for your link to the article though. It provided this useful piece of info "KPMG is likely to conclude that relocating any one of the three equestrian events - dressage, jumping and eventing - to an alternative venue would be too expensive since a satellite venue would require bespoke security, stabling and media facilities."
Good to know that Greenwich Park wouldn't need any of that stuff, eh?
Oh, and the financial side is only a small part of what many think could be a terrible act of vandalism. That's all we're on about, Steve.
Quite apart from the fact that the opposition to this has NEVER revolved around the cost, if the info in the standard is correct, the KPMG report is effectively a straw man argument.
The Standard article states "KPMG is likely to conclude that relocating any one of the three equestrian events - dressage, jumping and eventing - to an alternative venue would be too expensive since a satellite venue would require bespoke security, stabling and media facilities"
I'm sure that's entirely correct
So how about the cost implication of moving all of it, not just one or two events to ummm...say the specialist equestrian centres of Badminton or Hickstead? Both of these have these facilities already in place, so they will cost no extra. In fact both options would probably be significantly cheaper than Greenwich
Why was this option not included in the KPMG report?
Wolfe
I wholeheartedly agree that "an alternative venue would be too expensive since a satellite venue would require bespoke security, stabling and media facilities" makes absolutely no sense in the context of the park which also has none of these things. But bear in mind it's in the Standard, where nonsense is common currency.
You go on to say "the financial side is only a small part of what many think could be a terrible act of vandalism". It's the 'many' that intrigues me. How many?
Thus far, as far as I am aware, opposition manifests itself through votes against in the 3 amenity groups. I'm not sure how many people voted against (I have googled but come up blank) but if memory serves it was maybe 1,500 (happy to be corrected here). Given that there must be some overlap, we're maybe talking about 1,000+ people who have really voiced any opposition. OK. 1,000 certainly IS many.
Moaning about it over a pint doesn't count. Sounding off on blogs and adding your name to online petitions don't really count as opposition either - they take 30 seconds and require no effort. If I were LOCOG etc I would feel perfectly justified in ignoring any 'virtual' opposition.
In any event, there are less than 2,500 signatures on the Downing St petition, and several hundred thousand people in Greenwich (and who knows how many Londoners who use the park).
Given that leaves many more people who have said nothing, I can see only 2 conclusions:
1 - Opposition really isn't very widespread
2 - Therefore it is going to happen, becuase why wouldn't it?
I have found a link to the amenity votes: http://www.nogoe2012.com/local_opinion.aspx
Friends of Greenwich Park: resolution passed by a large majority on a show of hands.
I'm a Friend, and I think membership is c700, so I guess a large majority would be maybe 400 fors assuming everyone showed up, which I don't imagine they did (I was on hols - anyone there who could hazard a guess?)
Blackheath Society: resolution passed on a show of hands, 84 votes for, 42 votes against
Westcombe Society: 59 for, 71 against. (though it was 21 votes for, 7 against on the night)
So I reckon we have somewhere between 550 and maybe 250 who have gone out of their way to voice opposition, depending how many people attended the Friends vote and how many people are members of more than one group.
The question is - can LOCOG afford to ignore the views of c500 people?
I can see only one answer.
As I said would happen - all the people who have hung on to every word the standard has said when it has supported their anti-park course, now seek to deride it when it produces an article saying the event will take place in Greenwich Park as all other options are more costly.
They denounce parts of the report as speculation. Not a claim they laid at Gilligan's door when he made the now fatally flawed claim that the whole park would be closed for a year, or trees would be cut down.
Need I say any more...
And Will you are right. The opposition to date has been minimal. There is no real ground swell against the park.
You have a few hundred local residents with a genuine fear for the park getting damaged.
Then you have a rag bag of vested interests - such as people associated with the other sites that could benefit financially if they hosted the park.
As you rightly point out Will there are over 200,000 people living in Greenwich.
For all their media coverage, NOGOE have failed in getting a bandwagon rolling.
Why? Perhaps. Just Perhaps. the silent majority of people actually want the Games to come to Greenwich.
Steve said -
"P.s. I look forward to an open apology Rod..."
I have promised The Phantom and Will (whose views are well expressed and perfectly reasonable, even though I differ somewhat from them) and myself that I will not engage with "Steve" or "Sam" or whatever he's calling himself today, and I will not.
If anyone other than "Steve" can explain to me what I should apologise for, then I will happily do so, without reservation......
Rod...good plan. I think I'll join you. Particularly after the old "vested interests" line...always amusing. ("Hello, LOCOG? yes, I just wanted to say how opposed I am to the horses going to Greenwich. Down here in Hickstead we......DAMN, gave myself away....better go online to that Greenwich Phantom site..") But isn't that Steve all over? He is a funny guy. Funny, funny, funny.
Oh so now I work for LOCOG.
Just the other day I worked for the Council.
Funny how all my posts are last thing at night. I must be a very committed employee of any one of the above organisations.
Still next I'll be working for Royal Parks - if I can fit it on my CV that is...
Still from now on I'll ignore the silly, puerile claims that just because I'm in favour of the games coming to Greenwich I must be a plant.
Or maybe I should accuse you Rod/Wolfe of being Michael Goldman of NOGOE posting under various different guises...not that you are ofcourse eh :-)
Steve, can't resist...er, firstly I posted at 12.54. That's lunchtime. Secondly, I didn't suggest you worked for LOCOG. Thirdly, what is it with your obsession with time....?
Steve,
I have never claimed that "the park would be closed for a year" or that "trees would be cut down."
The actual position - as LOCOG's director of sport, Debbie Jevans, has confirmed and as I have reported in the Standard - is that a substantial part of the park will be closed for a total of ten months and trees will have to be pruned.
It's always a sign of weakness when you have to lie about your opponents.
Andrew Gilligan says, qiute rightly, that it is always a sign of weakness when you have to lie about your opponents, but that is all "Sam/Steve" does, and that is why I am not addressing the words that he puts in my mouth, or the way he twists the questions (never purported statements of fact - I/we don't know the facts and that is a large part of the problem) that I ask.
The point has been raised, with good analysis by Will, about numbers of people actively protesting about the Olympics in the Park - and it's true, it does look like that many really. Whilst it's a fair point, it does seem to me to be all that important. Not many people in wartime Germany protested publicly about the Nazis, but that doesn't mean the Nazis were right.
If (and it is an if) the Park generally, and trees in particular, are going to get damaged then holding these events in the Park is wrong, (and could conceivably threaten our World Heritage status ?).
The issue of cost, whilst relevant to us as UK taxpayers, isn't of crucial impotance to us as Greenwich residents, either, in my opinion.
I think there is a rule of thumb about how long a thread of comments needs to be before the Nazis are mentioned. I fear we have got there earlier than expected.
Rod, in all seriousness, if you are comparing people for the events in the Park to the silent majority in Nazi Germany, you have badly lost perspective (and, by implication, this debate).
None of us are likely to be carted away for expressing our views on horses in the Park. So I think we can be reasonably sure that when people say and do nothing, they are acting in accordance with their true opinions - not out of fear for their lives.
I'm sorry for the clumsy analogy - the events are in no way comparable. I just meant if something's wrong, it's wrong, whether lots of people protest or not. I should ahve found a better metaphor.
Rod - a metaphor I posted on an earlier post but which demonstrates the point that a vocal minority is often like the visible part of an iceberg
"If 2000 Greenwich residents are unhappy with this, then if this was nationwide, the equivalent proportion would be more than 750,000. About the same number that demonstrated against the Iraq War. Would you say that people against the war were a tiny minority? Or would you say that the people who bothered to march were representative of a much more widespread feeling amongst the populace?"
There is, of course, no way of proving that this is the case. Just as there is no way of proving that it isn't
So speculation over support aside, I notice that no-one has mentioned my point that, if this is all about cost, then why were they not looking at the relative costs of Hickstead or Badminton? - where these facilities are already in place.
However, as Rod says, oppostion has never been about cost but about possible damage to the park
I have seen and heard nothing that persuades me that the park will not be damaged in some way. Those who believe that all these buildings, a cross-country equestrian track, all the cabling and support needed for a televised event and tens of thousands of spectators can be shoehorned into a sensitive World Heritage Site with no damage whatsoever need to explain clearly how this will be done
So far they have failed to do so
"a metaphor I posted on an earlier post but which demonstrates the point that a vocal minority is often like the visible part of an iceberg"
Thank you Paolo, that is clearly a much better way of putting it.
Will said -
"you have badly lost perspective (and, by implication, this debate)."
I've already said sorry for the poor analogy, and I hope Will and others who are following this will accept that it was a poor choice of words on my part, nothing more.
I would like to pick up on what Will says about this being a debate that can be won or lost. I know what he means, but I think that if the Olympics are staged in the Park, with minimal closure, and superficial damage that can be quickly repaired, and they are a resounding success that brings increased tourism and prosperity to Greenwich, the we've all won.
Any other outcome means that we've all lost, I believe.
The LOCOG guy that I spoke to on car-free day admitted that there would be damage but that it could be very quickly put right. As Paopl says, they need to explain to us as soon as they can how this will be done.
Rod said - "I think that if the Olympics are staged in the Park, with minimal closure, and superficial damage that can be quickly repaired, and they are a resounding success that brings increased tourism and prosperity to Greenwich, then we've all won.
Any other outcome means that we've all lost, I believe."
I reckon we are 100% on the same side. I guess the debate is then what is minimal (less than half the Park closed for say less than 6 months?), superficial (no trees lost) and resounding?
No idea on resounding, but if I were the English Tourist Board/NMM/Greenwich Council I'd be praying for it to start with Zara Phillips winning gold on a clear sunny day, because that feeds the image tourists buy.
Though I suspect Rod may not agree with that last part...
"No idea on resounding, but if I were the English Tourist Board/NMM/Greenwich Council I'd be praying for it to start with Zara Phillips winning gold on a clear sunny day, because that feeds the image tourists buy.
Though I suspect Rod may not agree with that last part..."
No problem with any of that, Will, and I would be prepared to accept simple success (ie drop the "resounding" bit). And, yes - my idea of "superficial" definitely means no trees damaged.
You are right, however, in your assumption that I'm not the greatest fan of the Royal family, but then I can see how Zara Phillips winning a gold would be the right sort of thing.....
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