Olympic lessons for urban renewal
If, like me, you thoroughly enjoyed the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and were similarly hooked to the Paralympics that finished last weekend, the sport fest may have also evoked some happy memories of London 2012. It’s hard to believe that next summer our own spectacular hosting of the Olympics will have taken place a decade ago.
As the full impact of more sustainable thinking in the light of climate change is becoming clear, any kind of property development now needs to take into consideration not only its immediate impact, but also at least ten and twenty years down the line.
Yet thanks to some extremely strategic thinking, London 2012’s legacy is still visible in very tangible form today and will be for years and indeed decades to come. From the start London was careful to learn the lessons of previous Games, in particular Barcelona (1992) and Sydney (2000). The theory that venues developed for the Olympics would automatically transform themselves into usable quarters for their host cities was palpably false. Once proud sporting facilities and athletes’ accommodation rapidly turned into white elephants. You may, like me, have walked around some of these sites yourself, marvelling in sheer disbelief at the scale of wasted opportunities.
The fact that this did not happen after London 2012 was largely thanks to a bid that was conceived with the conscious desire to ensure that sites were systematically and properly reused. The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park is perhaps the clearest testimony to this joined up thinking, overseen by a dedicated body, the London Legacy Development Corporation (formerly the Olympic Park Legacy Company).
The creation of over 11,000 homes so far (with a further 22,000 expected by 2026), combined with excellent use of public space, has created on-going vibrancy to a large swathe of East London. The former media centre at Stratford, now repurposed as Here East, shows how office buildings can be successfully given a sustainable new lease of life. And other venues, including the sailing facilities in Weymouth and those for canoeing in the Lea Valley, have also enjoyed continuing use, long after the Olympics concluded.
With the baton, or rather Olympic flame, already handed to Paris for the 2024 Games it is now inconceivable that the physical legacy of the event will be left to chance. Instead, it has been carefully thought through as a core part of the hosting strategy.
All of this has left me thinking that UK regeneration projects could benefit from being ‘more London 2012’.
Of course, not everyone has Olympian budgets – but as I pointed out at the start, a large cash injection by itself is no guarantee of success. A lot can be achieved for relatively little, as P-THREE highlighted earlier this summer.
As the full impact of more sustainable thinking in the light of climate change is becoming clear, any kind of property development now needs to take into consideration not only its immediate impact, but also at least ten and twenty years down the line. Rather than simply ‘location, location, location’, we need to be adjusting our mindset to ‘legacy, legacy, legacy’.
This is already happening to a limited degree, but especially in areas of fragmented ownership, it is vital that a single party (be that a local authority or major private investor) steps up to the plate to deliver gold medal-worthy end results.
Article by Thomas Rose, Co-founder P-THREE
Photo credits: https://www.queenelizabetholympicpark.co.uk
