The Olympic Legacy

I travelled to Stratford today to have a little mooch around. It was a cold, dank, misty November day, a far cry from some 4 months earlier when the Olympics were in town. The Olympic park is still omnipresent but the banners, games makers and union jacks are long gone.

The Olympic park is now a construction site as the temporary buildings get taken down and the area gets redeveloped into the legacy park due to be opened to the public in July next year. The best view is now afforded from the third floor of a department store and it all seems a little empty; empty of the security tents, empty of the food stalls, empty of the crowds and of course empty of the excitement.

Saying all that it is obvious the positive effect that the games have had on the town of Stratford and the Newham area in general. Westfield, the huge shopping centre, was planned before the Olympics but its size and success has undoubtably been helped by the global sporting event. It was generally quite busy this afternoon bringing people into the area and providing approximately ten thousand jobs to the area.

Interestingly the other shopping centre in Stratford was also very busy and every shop was open, with no vacant lots. In five minutes we counted over two hundred and fifty people going in and out of the doors suggesting a healthy clientele.

The athletes village is being converted into flats, hopefully affordable, for single people, couples and families with the athletes clinic being redesigned into a health centre.

It is obvious that once the park is open and with the draw of the shopping centre people will come to the Stratford for many years. The sporting facilities, regeneration, shopping centre and close proximity to London not to mention the international station linking Stratford to Paris and Brussels will make the Newham area a very nice place got live indeed.

Go and visit.

 

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