So the closing ceremony ended it all on a high last night (tweet of the night I reckon was from Dan Hodges: "If the world thought we were a bit nuts after the opening ceremony, the UN Security Council's going to be ordering white coats after this") and there is no possible doubt that the London 2012 Olympic Games has to go down as one of the searing successes of our age. And nothing, but nothing, went wrong; no security alerts or major scandals. Even our fragile transport system came through, largely down to Londoners obligingly decanting from the city (and serious congratulations to Peter Hendy and TfL on the job of a lifetime). It really isn't very characteristic of Londoners to do what they're told and they should be given massive credit for being so accommodating; nor was it characteristic for those who remained to be so beatific and welcoming. It seriously was one of our finest hours.
Back to earth with a bump today, though. Everybody expects a bit of a
hangover, and certainly it will be tricky to assess the longer-term
benefits. As I have made clear in previous blogs, I am convinced that
the only real lasting legacy of London 2012 will be, purely and simply,
sport (although the government performed a neat trick of nearly
snatching defeat from the jaws of victory on that front, culminating in
its panicky press release sent out at 11pm on Friday night). And,
actually, wouldn't that just be great? A major uplift in sport, and the
physical well-being of our people, would be of such lasting benefit to
this nation that the story should end there. That might well be worth
£9bn in itself.
But the government will persist in claiming all sorts of wider benefits. In last Tuesday's Evening Standard Simon Jenkins was fuming: "What I find mystifying is why the government pretended, against all the evidence, that the Olympics were not just about sport but about making money, when such promises were bound to lead to even more money being lost." Someone soon will rush out a study to show the drop in productivity over the period of the Games and I do not expect it to be very jolly reading in this, our fifth year of recession, with no real plan on the horizon for economic growth. It isn't just London taxi drivers who are cross.
And what of the much vaunted regeneration legacy? My mother reports that our family in Scotland are all convinced that the Olympics Park has already had a transformational effect in East London, such is the hype. I'm not too sure that many residents of Stratford would agree with that, nor would find much room for optimism for the future.
Our own Matt Black of CBRE and EG blogging fame (readers of this blog may better know him by his stage name of Mathieu Le Noir) was commenting live on regeneration legacy on News 24 yesterday. Hurrah for the BBC finding Our Man, because you couldn't find anyone better versed (and if you missed him yesterday, then he is on Eamonn Holmes's sofa this morning). Matt rightly focused on how London is a great place to live, and how London 2012 has changed the perception of the UK from overseas, how the success of the Games has changed the perception of East London, and how important it is that we keep that going. He was not being drawn into specifics as to the benefits that may (or probably won't) accrue to the people of East London (he also reported that it was over 100 degrees in the TV studio at the Park!)
There is no escaping that the Olympics Park is a knockout development, but it is pretty well inward-facing, partly due to the attenuated need for security for the Games, of course. Opening up what is effectively an island site to regenerate the entire sub-region is something of a challenge (a challenge we did not meet at Canary Wharf). I reckon that over the next 10 years a wise LLDC will quietly morph away from ambitious claims in respect of far-reaching regeneration benefits across East London, and will settle for the creation of a fairly salubrious enclave in E20 that works on its own terms.
But the government will persist in claiming all sorts of wider benefits. In last Tuesday's Evening Standard Simon Jenkins was fuming: "What I find mystifying is why the government pretended, against all the evidence, that the Olympics were not just about sport but about making money, when such promises were bound to lead to even more money being lost." Someone soon will rush out a study to show the drop in productivity over the period of the Games and I do not expect it to be very jolly reading in this, our fifth year of recession, with no real plan on the horizon for economic growth. It isn't just London taxi drivers who are cross.
And what of the much vaunted regeneration legacy? My mother reports that our family in Scotland are all convinced that the Olympics Park has already had a transformational effect in East London, such is the hype. I'm not too sure that many residents of Stratford would agree with that, nor would find much room for optimism for the future.
Our own Matt Black of CBRE and EG blogging fame (readers of this blog may better know him by his stage name of Mathieu Le Noir) was commenting live on regeneration legacy on News 24 yesterday. Hurrah for the BBC finding Our Man, because you couldn't find anyone better versed (and if you missed him yesterday, then he is on Eamonn Holmes's sofa this morning). Matt rightly focused on how London is a great place to live, and how London 2012 has changed the perception of the UK from overseas, how the success of the Games has changed the perception of East London, and how important it is that we keep that going. He was not being drawn into specifics as to the benefits that may (or probably won't) accrue to the people of East London (he also reported that it was over 100 degrees in the TV studio at the Park!)
There is no escaping that the Olympics Park is a knockout development, but it is pretty well inward-facing, partly due to the attenuated need for security for the Games, of course. Opening up what is effectively an island site to regenerate the entire sub-region is something of a challenge (a challenge we did not meet at Canary Wharf). I reckon that over the next 10 years a wise LLDC will quietly morph away from ambitious claims in respect of far-reaching regeneration benefits across East London, and will settle for the creation of a fairly salubrious enclave in E20 that works on its own terms.
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