Memorandum submitted by Greenwich Council
Greenwich Council supports the submission made
by the five Host Boroughs, and the following commentary refers
specifically to Greenwich's experience and expectations.
Greenwich has made great strides in the last
fifteen years to recover from the economic decline that followed
the cessation of virtually all of the borough's manufacturing
industry during the 1960s and 70s.
The Council has developed a partnership approach
to regeneration, successfully bringing in hundreds of millions
of pounds in both public and private investment. Focused initially
on the waterfront area, the programme of regeneration has since
expanded to ensure that other parts of the borough benefit from
access to the new opportunities and improved infrastructure that
are being created.
The development of the Millennium Dome served
as a major catalyst in attracting investment to improve the borough's
transport and economic infrastructure, and Greenwich Council developed
programmes to enable the local community to take advantage of
these developments. Today we have significant regeneration projects
which are actively delivering jobs, new homes and community facilities.
We believe that the 2012 Games will act as an accelerator and
an enabler to our ambitions for the regeneration of the borough.
To achieve this requires the right mechanisms to be in place to
facilitate this.
Our vision is that the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic
Games will enable us to lever in additional economic and social
benefits from regeneration for the people who live, work, learn
in and visit Greenwich.
We are clear that the legacy for Greenwich from
the London Olympics has already begun. Our Olympic venues are
already in place, providing us with the opportunity to begin to
optimise the benefits of the Games.
We have six specific key legacy priorities:
— to improve the economic base for
the borough in terms of employment, training and business opportunities,
and to deliver these benefits for local people;
— to enable greater access to the borough
via improved transport routes and infrastructure;
— to increase the tourism economy in
Greenwich and other parts of east and south east London;
— to increase participation by young
people in sport and physical activities as part of a healthy living
strategy;
— to develop competition-level facilities
in individual sports using the Building Schools for the Future
programme; and
— to improve access to sport for disabled
people.
Along with these six key priorities we have
a number of cross-cutting themes which will be used as a yardstick
against which to measure progress:
— diversity, equality and social inclusion;
— sustainability and continuation;
and
— partnership working across the borough.
Greenwich will host eight Olympic events and,
with three main sites at Greenwich Park, Woolwich Barracks and
The O2, the borough is well placed to benefit from the 2012 Games.
Our unique situation of having such iconic and internationally
recognised venues already in place, with World Heritage status
for one, gives us an immediate legacy focus now.
With the experience we have had from hosting
the Millennium Dome, with its immediate and considerable impact
on employment and pathways into work, we fully intend to build
on the good practice that has occurred here, whilst also learning
from elsewhere.
We are working in partnership with the other
four Olympic host boroughs, as well as with Government, with London-wide
partners, with local venues and with a wide range of local stakeholders.
This in itself represents an important legacy, through the partnerships
and further opportunities for collaboration that will be created
for the long-term.
We can already cite a number of achievements
in delivering a legacy for the Greenwich community:
— a programme of activities to increase
the participation of children and young people in sport, using
our Olympic venues to inspire and enthuse our young people;
— the launch of a new cycle trail linking
our three Olympic venues;
— the prospect of world-class sporting
events taking place in the borough between now and 2012, including
the Tour de France in 2007 and the World Gymnastics Championships
in 2009; and
— a local labour and business scheme
(GLLaB), already geared up to ensure local people and businesses
can benefit from jobs and contracting opportunities as they come
on stream.
Together with the other four Olympic host boroughs,
we are working to create structures and programmes for ensuring
local people and businesses benefit from these employment and
business opportunities. This includes exploration of the City
Strategy pilot as a key mechanism for supporting local people
in this key area.
We are also developing proposals to:
— utilise our position as a pilot for
Building Schools for the Future to provide competition-level sporting
facilities linked to secondary schools in the borough;
— provide pre-training camp facilities
in the borough;
— develop a volunteering programme;
and
— develop capacity within the borough
to sustain a raised level of sporting and cultural activity.
In addition, Greenwich is leading on behalf
of the five host boroughs in developing a local employment and
training framework to secure jobs for local residents. This will
be launched in the next few weeks.
For Greenwich, the legacy from the London Games
starts now, not in August 2012.
We believe that the Games, and the presence
of the Olympic venues in Greenwich, can be used to promote tourism,
supporting both Greenwich's strategy for increasing overnight
stays, and the London tourism strategy for raising the international
profile of Greenwich and other parts of east and south east London.
We view the Games as an opportunity to create
wider access to sporting facilities and to Olympic employment
opportunities for disabled people; to engage local communities,
and particularly young people, in sporting and cultural activities;
and above all to inspire and raise the aspirations of young people
in our borough.
5 October 2006
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