A meeting with the Olympic Park Legacy Company last night provided on a micro level a good summation of the challenges the new vehicle will face in regenerating vast parts of east London.
The evening began with an assorted crew of journalists whingeing in unison about having to hike it all the way over to Fish Island for the meeting - despite the venue being Forman's restaurant and the food being very good.
It all highlights how the job in particular of landing a significant anchor tenant at the Olympics IBC/MPC centre in Hackney Wick post-Games is not going to be easy and, in fairness, no one at the OPLC has ever suggested it will be.
Baroness Ford and Andrew Altman were in fact refreshingly candid in discussion with us all and, I can report, still upbeat and extremely excited about the job in hand.
It was clear that in previous lives working on projects like the Dome and regeneration in Philadelphia and Washington the two have faced and overcome many of the hurdles we were suggesting were in the way last night.
That said the job is a big one - building up to 10,000 homes on the Olympic Park over the next 20 years or more and animating major sports facilities, offices and broadcasting space.
The choice of Forman's was a pointed one. Here, Baroness Ford said, was a business relocated from its long-term home by the Olympics CPO programme that is now thriving, in the main because of its own drive but also because the Olympics show is coming to town. There will be many, many more like Forman's she suggested.
And I guess the other point may have been to us journalists. If we are going to write about the regeneration of east London we ought to be prepared to visit every now and again!
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