THE LEGACY:Will Stratford in east London reap an Olympics legacy? Come back in a decade to find out
INSIDE THE Olympic Park on Saturday evening, 80,000 people shouted themselves hoarse as Britain’s Mo Farah won the 5,000m in a victory that sealed London 2012’s triumph in the eyes of locals.
Several hundred yards away, the streets of Carpenters estate, which look on to the Olympic Park, were near-deserted, with just a few people sitting in the sun outside the Carpenter’s Arms, or watching TV inside.
Once home to 700 families, Carpenters has been gradually cleared out over the last five years or so by Newham Borough Council, which intends to build anew upon the ruins of the 40-year-old estate.
For Newham, a Carpenters Mark II offers a future for Stratford and the borough as a whole: properly designed and built homes, mixed communities, blessed by the transport links that have changed Stratford.
For some locals, however, it is a vision of something else: a society in which they will be increasingly frozen out, outbid by incomers attracted to what was once, and still is to some extent, an unattractive neighbourhood.
The Olympic Park itself will become home to thousands, firstly with the transformation of the bright, airy tower-blocks that housed thousands of athletes during the Games.
Houses will be built in a joint venture between Qatari Diar Real Estate Development Company and Delancey and Triathlon, a company formed by three local housing associations. In all, 2,818 new homes will be provided in the development, to be known as the East Village.
Nearly 1,500 will be rented, while 1,379 will be sold under a variety of “affordable homes” schemes where the property can be bought in stages.
Some of the properties will be rented to tenants of Newham and surrounding boroughs. The majority, however, have been bought by Triathlon Homes, a company formed by three housing associations.
From next year, they will rent them out for council rates to the poorest tenants, or for up to three-quarters of the local rental rate to families earning up to £75,000.
“We will be biased towards those who are in work,” said Geoff Pearce of Triathlon Homes, believing that the mistakes created by local authority “sink estates” in the past must not be repeated. In time, 8,000 more homes will be built on or around the Olympic Park.
Former Labour housing minister Nick Raynsford is convinced the model will work, offering an atmosphere of aspiration to youths on lands that have inspired millions throughout the world, not just in Britain, over the last fortnight.
Hackney native JJ Jegede, an athletics champion who has won UK titles, says: “What you see now is not the east London when I was a kid. Then it used to be about nothing more than getting knock-off goods in the local market, it wasn’t a good place to be. Now it is a tourist attraction. We have seen everything change in the blink of an eye.”
Stratford-born Christella Matoko says, “It’s quite shocking, really. This is a place where people did not want to go. Now, my sister tells me that she feels proud to be from Stratford. This is the first time that people say that.”
Others want to believe but remain doubtful, including Judith Garfield, holder of an MBE, who as director of Eastside Community Heritage has gathered the stories of thousands of locals for an oral history archive over the last 20 years.
Mayor of Newham, Labour’s Sir Robin Wales, who rules with a mighty majority, is interested in regeneration, not locals, Garfield said. Yes, Stratford has changed for the better, but locals have not been the ones to benefit most.
Jobs have come with the Westfield shopping centre, though Garfield thinks little of them: “Minimum-wage jobs are not what it is about, particularly when in many cases they are sacked after three months, as happens too often. Robin Wales seems to think everything is about shopping.”
Newham is a community used to change, having been a first home in London for a succession of immigrants over 200 years, including the Irish.
The motivation for every action by Newham council is traced and retraced by locals, including the route for Olympic spectators, who on disembarking at Stratford – now serviced by Jubilee, Central and Javelin lines – were directed to the left, away from Stratford.
From there, they were quickly ushered up steps into the Westfield shopping centre and then on to the Olympic Park. For many locals, the route chosen was as much about denying visitors a sight of “real” Stratford as anything else.
Garfield concurs: “The logical route would have been down the High Street and around. That was the traditional route into the land. Businesses had believed that the foot-fall on the street would increase. But it hasn’t.
“This a tale of ‘old’ and ‘new’ Stratford and ‘old’ Stratford lost,” she adds. “It is all about covering us up.”
