CBRE head of East London Matt Black (pictured, left) has spent the last seven years of his life helping to create the 500-acre Olympic Park in Stratford.
Here are some of his thoughts on what has happened in East London:
Standing outside St Martin's Court this morning watching the Olympic Flame go past the office and hearing the roar of the crowd took me back to the 6th July 2005. That day I was standing at the bar of the Albannach in Trafalgar Square listening to the announcements coming through from Singapore. I was at the "Thank you London" party - an event for all those who had been involved with the 2012 bid. Little did I know what impact the announcement by Jacque Rogge at just before 1pm that day would have on so many people's lives, including my own, for the next seven years.
After the jubilation of hearing London announced as the winner, there was a stark realisation of how much work had to be done in such a short period of time with NO possible extension to the deadline. A meeting was planned for the next morning where the CBRE team appeared with bleary eyes and sore heads to work out how we were going to play our part in acquiring almost 500 acres in over 400 different ownerships and relocate more than 3.5 m sq ft of business in a two year period to hand the land over for the Olympic Park to be built.
This was the largest land assembly project to have ever taken place in Europe and all those involved feel proud to have played our part. In 2005 I often wondered what Stratford and The Olympic Park would look like by 2012 and questioned as to whether it would live up to the dream and vision.
At that time this remarkable area, only three miles east of The City of London, was home to a range of users including waste recycling, scrap yards, food manufacturing, printing and distribution. It also had its issues including heavily contaminated ground, buildings that were no longer fit for purpose, electricity pylons crossing the whole site and Europe's largest redundant fridge mountain. This was an opportunity to revitalise an area of London that had suffered from a lack of investment for a number of decades and the Games was the opportunity to rectify this and bring it back to becoming a core part of London again.
Over the next two years there were vociferous concerns from owners of businesses who were facing an uncertain future, some of which I got to know well after animated and tense negotiations and now count as friends. One, who was the most high profile objector during the process, that I e-mailed yesterday to wish him well over the next couple of weeks at his new facility adjacent to the Park summed it up in his response: "Cheers Matt - lots of blood, sweat and tears! It's looking amazing".
This was certainly one of the most professionally challenging periods of my life where no day was the same and deadlines were deadlines with no flexibility at all. Would it be worth it? I was always convinced it would. And as I watched the BBC News this week with Fiona Bruce presenting live from the Olympic Park with the Stadium in the background illuminated and tinted blue and the rest of the Park illuminated, the feelings of excitement about the imminent start of the Games and my own satisfaction of playing a very small part in such an exciting and extraordinary project, put a beaming smile from ear to ear across my face.
I cannot wait for tomorrow... bring on the Games.
Mr Black writes:
'It also had its issues including heavily contaminated ground, buildings that were no longer fit for purpose, electricity pylons crossing the whole site and Europe's largest redundant fridge mountain. This was an opportunity to revitalise an area of London that had suffered from a lack of investment for a number of decades and the Games was the opportunity to rectify this and bring it back to becoming a core part of London again.'
This astonishing statement suggests that no investment was occurring in Stratford! So what of the £4billion (bigger than the 2005 £2.37billion Olympic budget) Stratford City project? Then there is this 'becoming a core part of London' argument. Doesn't Mr Black recall the description of Stratford City as a 'Metropolitan Centre to serve London'?
Again for those who recall the Stratford City planning application decided in May 2004 they will recall that the pylons over what is now the Olympic Park were to be removed as part of the Stratford City project (this was acknowledged in the LDA's 2006 CPO evidence!).
Whether an area has a fridge mountain is really neither here nor there. This kind of dismissive reference has been used so often to marginalise a working industrial area which included two housing estates, two traveller sites, two good sized parks/open spaces at the Eastway Cycle Track and Arena Field and other sports facilities at Eton Manor and well laid out industrial estates as well as some areas in need of a clean up. Fridges have to be stored somewhere and it is a perfectly sensible use of land in an industrial zone.
As for the clean up, those of us who lived on the site at Clays Lane had done so for 25 years without anyone thinking that this was needed when we were there. There never was any need to 'clean up' spaces like the Eastway Cycle Track or Arena Field both of which had sensible uses as parkland. Digging them up simply created a dust hazard that spread contaminated dust over East London.
Clays Lane residents pointed out that the ODA would find radioactive material scattered all over the place, much of it completely harmless, as in the case of thorium, if left alone, but extremely dangerous if turned to dust. The ODA and HSE paid no attention and denied this was the case until they found radioactive material all over the site and ended up creating a storage cell with over 7,000 tonnes of radioactively contaminated soil 250 metres north of the main stadium. This cell includes 100 tonnes of non-exempt material which should have gone to Drigg and all this was done without planning permission.
It has to be pointed out that developers will clean up sites if there is a profit to be made and this would have happened on the Olympic Park as the area is littered with waterways which are a property developer's dream. A short walk around the area will demonstrate the point with all the flats that are being built in the area along the canals and rivers. They are nothing to do with the Olympics just like Stratford City. This building has been going on since the early 2000s. Mr Prior, the Olympic master planner said back in an interview in 2003 that actually the Olympics was holding up development in the area by taking land out of circulation! Much of the Park is covered in a sheet under a thin layer of 'remediated' soil warning future developers they will have to do further remediation.
The LDA's CPO evidence made it plain that the intention of the project was to clear out 'dirty' industry which of course also meant dirty jobs, 5000 were moved out of the park, jobs local people did, to make way for nice clean creative type jobs which in all probability local people will not do. This represents a clean out of a class of people.
Mr Black says he has been working on the Olympic project for seven years. I started at the end of 2003 when the first planning application was produced which makes eight and a half years. The first time the LDA came to Clays Lane they told us our estate would be demolished even if the Olympics didn't come. They even had a drawing to show us what the area would look like. Then when we asked for more information they said the plan didn't exist!
Mr Black's assertions remind me of that first encounter with the LDA.
Actually I have to correct my statement that Stratford City received permission from Newham in May 2004, that was a report which went to the Mayor of London, permission was given by Newham in September, just before the Olympics permission.