In AD 67, Roman Emperor Nero was declared
chariot champion, and awarded the gold medal. In spite of the fact that he fell
out of his chariot and never even finished the race. So what are the facts
about the Olympics, and is East London the true winner, or have they fallen out
the chariot?
This year is the fifth anniversary of the Olympic
bid, which brought promises of regeneration and upturns in the five boroughs of
Tower Hamlets, Hackney, Waltham Forest and Newham. Chair Lord Sebastian Coe
based his pitch for the Olympics on the promise of the lasting regeneration
legacy the event would leave east London. It was proposed that these areas
would experience higher employment, sporting participation, training
opportunities and housing conditions. It was said that the sporting events
would strengthen a deprived community. Yet how does such a huge event trickle
down to the local level?
According to a study done by Coalter, Allison
and Taylor on the role of sports in regenerating deprived urban areas,
"there is little evidence about the effects of such sports events-led
economic regeneration strategies...there is a lack of available data on the
regenerative impact of sports investments on local communities". In other
words, major sporting events have no measurable impact on locals. Rather, huge
projects strip funding away from locally managed, smaller projects. The
National Lottery is contributing £2.2billion to the Olympics. Ironically, this
has taken money from school sport funding, which has seen it's budget cut by 28
percent, not to mention the Grants for the Arts donations which has taken a
29.6% slash. It should be noted that Prime Minister Cameron is reassessing the
cuts on sports for school after a petition from Olympic and Paralympics
athletes such as diver Tom Daley, swimmer Sascha Kindred and boxer James
DeGale. National Lottery cuts directly affect smaller charities and local
projects all around England, as they will find it near impossible to secure
funding. Sir Clive Booth, chair of the Big Lottery Fund, commented on the
diversion of good cause money: "I very much regret that it has been
necessary to divert a further £425m of the Big Lottery fund's good cause
resources to support the 2012 Olympics infrastructure..." It is clear the
government see regeneration as building large-scale projects as oppose to
giving a helping hand to local communities.
If smaller projects and charities will be
unable to pay their staff, at least the Olympic Delivery Authority has promised
11,000 new jobs, with a target of 10-15% of the workforce to be drawn from the
five host boroughs. But surely this target sounds relatively small, considering
the billions going in to the project and the labour that needs doing. Hackney
MP Diane Abbot comments: "The number of people from the East End who have
received jobs there remains low...it is a pitifully unambitious target. It will
have no sustainability if local people see 85% to 90% of jobs going to
outsiders". The Olympic Delivery Authority scheme has put only eight
Hackney residents into employment, yet about 108,000 people of workable age in
the Olympic boroughs are unemployed. The largest space for employment is in
construction, with a potential 30,000 jobs. However hiring is directly in the
hands of the sub-contractor, who will simply use the cheapest labour, and not
take the initiative to hire local people or give contracts to local suppliers.
In fact, a mere 77 local businesses out of 600 companies supply to the
Olympics. Tenon Forum, a group of entrepreneurial advisors have reported that
just 10% of the nation's entrepreneurs think the games will have a positive
impact on their businesses, with 70% believing that they will lose out to big
companies. 300 local businesses in Stratford were issued with compulsory
purchase orders by the London Development Agency, and have now been vacated.
These companies employed at least 5,000 staff. Yet these figures have not been
subtracted from the calculation of job creations for the Olympics, and haven't
been taken into consideration by the ODA as losses for local employment. But
you won't have to worry about local unemployment if you are one of Boris
Johnson's ex-lovers, as you are guaranteed a job at the Olympic Park! So that
should knock down the figure quite a bit.
Hi. I’m Designer of Blog Magic. I’m CEO/Founder of ThemeXpose. I’m Creative Art Director, Web Designer, UI/UX Designer, Interaction Designer, Industrial Designer, Web Developer, Business Enthusiast, StartUp Enthusiast, Speaker, Writer and Photographer. Inspired to make things looks better.
0 comments:
Post a Comment