Forced removal - population displacements

East London faces the break up of the largest concentration of amateur football pitches in Europe (home to the Hackney and Leyton Sunday League), relocation of a local cycle track, running and walking routes. There will be displacement of other uses, including three Travellers' settlements, artists' studios, and Clays Lane Peabody Estate (formerly Clays Lane Housing Co-operative, now managed by Community Based Housing Association [CBHA]). Over 400 University of East London students, also based at Clays Lane, were evicted by the University in advance of the bid decision in July, many in the throes of their exams. The impact of relocation on firms in the Lower Lea Valley is considered in Section 2.2 below.

Travellers at Clays Lane have been informed of only one site for relocation, at Jenkins Lane, Barking, near a giant sewage works, a gas works, and perilously close to the Thames. This is a location refused already by at least one company also forced to relocate (Bedrock). The LDA also indicated a car park under a flyover in Beckton for relocation, a destination typical of the 'apartheid' of Traveller settlements in the past. Newham Council (unlike Hackney) has demonstrated little political commitment to Travellers' rights. In December 2004, the LDA promised Clays Lane Travellers that new land would be identified by the following June. Environmental considerations of relocation options are at the top of their agenda (Travellers living on local authority sites..., January 10, 2006).

Travellers have lived at the Clays Lane Caravan Site for 34 years. There are four generations of extended family here; 15 families out of a total of 38 families on the three sites to be displaced. Twenty years ago, Clays Lane was cut off, but now, it is better connected. The location is no longer green and good for the kids to play due to development going on in the area. With relocation, we are worried about stigma, violence and discrimination. Families will be broken up. The prospect of moving has been on the cards for five years. The site at Jenkins Lane is not fit for human habitation. We feel very let down and disappointed with the lack of consultation [by] the LDA and LB Newham.
Tracie Giles, Clays Lane Caravan Site

We have been told by the LDA that a car park under a flyover in Beckton has been included in the compulsory purchase order (CPO) as it is needed for the relocation of our site. We do not think that this land is suitable for our community because there are no services nearby, it is completely isolated and cut off by busy roads and the river, with very poor public transport. It is unsuitable for families with young children and elderly people. We feel that this land is typical of where sites have been built in the past in unsuitable and unhealthy locations such as under pylons, flyovers or next to rubbish tips. We do not want to move from our site at Clays Lane until we have had a full say in where we move to. We want to be relocated in an environment that is suitable for our community.
From a Statement by the Waterden Crescent Residents Group and the Clays Lane Travellers Residents Association, January 10, 2006

Meanwhile, Travellers living on Waterden Road and due to be relocated by Hackney Council have complained of delays in the consultation for new sites. They state that they are not prepared to leave the land they are living on until new sites in a suitable place are guaranteed. Clays Lane Travellers state that they do not wish to move from their existing site until they have had a "full say" in where they move to. (Travellers living on local authority sites..., ibid).

Clays Lane Peabody Estate, once the largest purpose built housing co operative in Europe, have as yet also not been offered replacement accommodation despite the receipt of CPOs, and only in February 2006 did the LDA employ someone to liaise with former Co operative members over rehousing and concede to fund legal advice. VOCAL campaign activist, Julian Cheyne, a tenant on the estate, maintains a blog on the removal process on the Inside Housing website :

The Clays Lane Peabody Estate (formerly Clays Lane Housing Co-operative), with around 420 residents, is the largest community to be demolished to make way for the Olympics. People who have lived here for up to 25 years will be removed to make way for athletes who will be here for a couple of weeks. Almost seven months after the decision to award London the 2012 Olympics, Clays Lane residents are little wiser as to where they will go. No land has been found for a purpose built estate for those who wish to move as a community. The LDA is at present asking housing associations about any housing estates they are building or planning to build so they can be taken over as an off-the-shelf estate for such a move. This would seem to rule out any input into the design of such an estate as was promised. Tenants have no information on future rents and other housing costs, locations or details of flats available. They are not included in any decision making meetings or in the discussions between the different agencies involved.

Up until now no independent advice of any kind has been on offer. A tenants' friend has now been appointed by a panel of tenants. However, the original LDA/CBHA plan was that this advisory service would be appointed by two LDA/CBHA staff and one tenant. Only after objections were made was this irregular proposal overturned. Tenants have been told there will be "winners and losers" in the process and to "live in the real world", even though they are supposed to be getting an improvement in their housing and facilities, according to the Mayor of London.

The timetable for the move is ridiculously tight, with only 18 months allowed for the relocation, while five years is provided for preparing for and constructing the Olympic Village. Under the Legacy proposals, East London is supposed to benefit from the Olympics. At the moment it is hard to see how Clays Lane residents are going to receive what has been promised them. If the community which is demolished to make way for the Olympics does not benefit what hope for the rest of East London?

Displacement of firms and settlements is exerting a wider impact on surrounding areas in the Olympic boroughs, already experiencing significant land inflation and local authority land and property auctions. The River Lea Navigation Canal itself (London boroughs of Hackney and Haringey) has attracted several recent planning applications for high rise dwellings (NLLDC, 2005). High land prices across the Olympic boroughs impact particularly on artists, Travellers, voluntary sector organisations and co operatives. Not for profit organisations such as Hackney Community Transport, which provides buses for routes that the privatised companies regard as unprofitable, have already found land rental costs in Newham prohibit the expansion of their service (Blowe, 2004). Space Studios, which rents low cost space to artists and designer makers, has also complained about the escalating cost of land (private conversation). Jeremy Corbyn MP raised concerns for artists living in the Olympic boroughs, and those due to be displaced directly by developments, in his speech on the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Bill, currently in passage to the House of Lords (December 7, 2005). Both Hackney and Tower Hamlets are renown for the numbers of artists living and working within their borough boundaries. Forced removal has placed the Travellers under particular pressure. Several of the proposed new sites have attracted local opposition, particularly where they are green or attractive to private developers or abut local amenities. Conversely, the redrawing of Olympic development area boundaries has left homeowners stranded on Fish Island (East London Advertiser, August 30, 2006).

In every Olympic host city there has been, with varying levels of severity, some sort of forced removal of the poor. For the 1936 Games in Nazi Berlin, Roma were sent to the Marzhan concentration camp at the edge of the city. In Los Angeles, for the 1984 Games, homeless people were "driven out" of the city boundaries (Black Flag 223). In Atlanta, in 1996, construction of the Centennial Park (a commercial open space dominated by Olympic sponsors) displaced around 1,000 homeless people and four shelters set up to help them.

In a city with no rent control, the homeless were subjected to particularly vicious ordinances and regulations (including payment for one way tickets out of town) as part of what Mitchell (1997) argues amounts to the annihilation of their space through legal constructions.
Drew Whitelegg (2000) Going for Gold: Atlanta's Bid for Fame, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Vol 24.4, December edition

Roma settlements were also displaced for the Athens Olympics 2004 which led Housing Rights Bulletin (COHRE, 2004) to comment: "The preparations for large international events often lead to thousands of people being forcibly evicted from their homes, facing increased poverty, vulnerability and marginalisation". 300,000 people have been displaced in Beijing for the Olympics in 2008 (some illegally). Amnesty International have complained of the arrest and persecution of protesters in Beijing, and inadequate reparation for removal, requisition and redundancy (J. Macartney, The Times, May 26, 2005). In British Colombia, indigenous peoples are facing planning applications associated with the Vancouver Winter Olympics 2010 for ski resorts, heli skiing, cat skiing and snowmobiling, despite the fact that several of these activities are forbidden in most Alpine areas of Europe, and in disregard of the Supreme Court of Canada ruling of 1997 recognising Aboriginal Title. This has been condemned by the United Nations as a violation of international human rights. Indigenous peoples in British Columbia have taken a "very active" stand to protect both Aboriginal Title and lands (Regarding concerns..., June 30, 2002). Historically, such attacks on indigenous lands in British Columbia have forced armed confrontation.

Forced removal - relocation of firms

On January 30, 2006, website Planning Resource announced that 95 firms based on the south of Fish Island and Pudding Lane, Stratford, had won a reprieve from compulsory purchase after a redrawing of the Olympic masterplan boundaries. The boundary revision will save the LDA £142 million and enable the area to retain 1,200 out of the 6,058 jobs that were to be relocated. The new plans mean that 80 objections to the CPOs will be dropped from the public inquiry due to start in May. However, eastern Fish Island will still be redeveloped despite containing more modern infrastructure.

Many of the 'reprieved' businesses are tenants and face landlords hiking rents up massively because of the increase in the value of the land or refusing to renew existing leases. They will now receive no compensation in the event of forced relocation and receive no assistance with professional fees. Lance Forman of the Marshgate Lane Business Group detailed contradictions in the LDA's approach. Two weeks beforehand the LDA wrote privately that they were going to CPO 42 extra firms, but this was not released to the press. Commercial agreements reached with firm Sortex are now in limbo as their land is not required. This despite the fact that new land for relocation was already purchased, and that "about one million pounds must have been spent on legal, professional, accounting and architectural and planning fees". Forman speculates on whether Sortex will now choose to move, whether the LDA will honour payments for removal and reconstruction, or whether the LDA, now that it owns the Sortex site, will still force removal, preferring to hang on to the land that they now own. The agreements with Sortex may not in fact be revokable. Forman also notes that land requisitioned both on Fish Island and the southern part of Marshgate Lane follows the route of Crossrail and wonders whether the redrawing of the Olympic boundary was a displacement of costs onto the Crossrail budget. Many of the 'saved' buildings on the southern part of Marshgate Lane are in such a dilapidated condition that Forman feels that it is almost certain that they will be removed to enhance the Olympic developments (mail to Julian Cheyne from David Russell of The PR Office, February 2, 2006).

Forman himself settled with the LDA on May 5, 2006, and will move to a site just outside the Olympic precinct on the reprieved Fish Island. Reporting the closure of this long-running battle, Matthew Beard of The Independent (May 9, 2006) speculates "It is thought the London Development Agency, which handles land deals for the London Mayor Ken Livingstone, agreed to hand over the land on one last-minute condition. Lance Forman, the head of the company (Forman & Field, smoked fish suppliers to some of the world's best restaurants) and the most high profile opponent of the CPO process, has dropped his request to cross-examine Lord Coe, the chairman of the 2012 Games organising committee, at the public inquiry this week". The paper reports that negotiations are still ongoing with the LDA over compensation costs for relocation. Forman states that with the relocation decision, 50 jobs at his firm out of 65 will now be safeguarded. The CPO inquiry has received a total of 400 objections, although the LDA claims that 80% of land deals are now completed, representing 65% of employees in the affected 500-acre area (or as reported in This is Local London, April 21, 2006, "Agreements have been reached with the employers of about 90% of the area's workers"). Mayor Ken Livingstone hopes that all matters will be settled by December (A. Culf, The Guardian, April 21, 2006).

Before firms started to reach agreements with the LDA and, after the Fish Island boundary was rewritten, there were around 207 Lower Lea Valley businesses forced to shift and over 4,858 jobs to be dispersed around east London (a sum derived from numbers released by the LDA on January 16, 2006). Figures are a little confusing because, as the LDA concede, a percentage of the LLV business population is transient, and these figures quoted do not include firms remaining on Fish Island that are still forced to move. Proximity to customers in central and inner London is a critical factor to competition and many firms, already vulnerable, are to be thrown into a perilous position by forced relocation. Firms forced to move to Beckton or Dagenham may find themselves unable to attract customers, beleaguered by the additional expense of delivery mileage, and with (often specialist) staff unable to get in to work or unwilling to add extra travel time to their day. Even buoyant firms are worried about fatality by compression: the cross over period written in for rebuilding machinery in new locations is woefully inadequate. Many of the firms are new to the Lower Lea Valley. Of the businesses surveyed by the LDA as part of the socio economic assessment attached to the planning applications, 30% had arrived since 2000, over 50% had been established in the Lower Lea Valley only since 1995, and 40% predicted no expansion ahead in market reach or workforce (only 16% intended to invest in standard plant, and/or only 32% in new technology). 50% of firms had less than ten employees and 74% of the Lower Lea Valley workforce surveyed lived more than two miles away (LDA, 2004/2, pp 16 17).

The LDA has kept compensation payments at a punitive level and the bid encountered its first legal opposition in September 2004. Firms on the Marshgate Lane Estate in Stratford protested that LDA purchase monies were too low for one, Michael Finlay, ironically, director of a construction firm, 20-30% less than prices paid originally for land (H. Muir, The Guardian, September 20, 2004). The Daily Telegraph (A. Patrick, May 21, 2005) reported figures from the Marshgate Lane Business Group estimating that the full cost of removal (for an earlier figure of around 284 businesses) would be £1.5 billion. Members of the Group have been offered a paltry £450 million (30% of the sum required). The LDA refused to agree payments in advance of the July 2005 bid decision. Land deals sympathetic to customer and staff proximity were lost with the delay.

Press revelations have branded the LDA as incompetent and even deceptive. It is possible that this forced their hand toward boundary revision. Mary Reilly, Chair of the LDA, is reported to have said that the budgeted amount did not include buying new sites for relocated firms. (Associated Press, November 2, 2005). Two months earlier, The Observer (D. Campbell, September 18, 2005) reported that "London 2012 sources admit privately that some of the costs [...] were deliberately under estimated or disguised during the bidding process". The article stated that one LDA official said that "the total bill (for land and decontamination) could be three times higher" than anticipated. It also reported that ministers covertly awarded an extra £1 billion to the LDA to ensure delivery.

Waste-recycling yards and refuse-transfer stations may find relocation especially difficult due to the nature of their land use. Contacts vital to trading will be lost with the dispersion of firms. The stigmatisation of the scrap economy by land use classes hinders the residential relocation prospects of Travellers (Section 2.1, above), and operates as vicious social regulation. Meanwhile, the LDA claims there will be no closure, and assert the waste shttp://www.gamesmonitor.org.uk/media_centreector as "valuable for London" (private conversation). However, many firms (including the tiny Traveller businesses) face problems at a distance; closure is a very real future prospect.

Relocation also offers employers the chance to restructure the workplace balance of power, to increase the rate of exploitation. Paucity of land compensation payments may also impact on staff, leading to wage stringencies or redundancies. Increased distances for delivery vehicles and trucks owned by relocated companies are a disaster for the 'sustainable' ambitions of the Olympic proposals (although presumably not counted by official monitors). Seamus Gannon, owner of Bedrock, a concrete crushing company, talking to Martin Samuel of The Times, May 4, 2005, estimated that a move east would require another 25 giant tipper trucks, and, his yard making 400 trips daily, this would lead to vehicles making an extra 2,800 miles every day. The Socio Economic Assessment reports however that "Businesses are characterised by high traffic movements, with over 50% of businesses having five or more deliveries or dispatches a day, most of which are made by van or HGV" (LDA, ibid, p 17). Again, it appears that figures have been disguised.

Local sporting losses

In the year following the 2000 Games [Sydney], although seven Olympic sports experienced a small increase in participation, nine declined. The pattern for non Olympic sports was broadly similar, with the biggest increase in non competitive walking. Veal (2003) also speculates that declines in participation for certain sports could be explained by a 'couch potato' syndrome induced by so much sports coverage on television! However, his overall conclusion is that it is "a mixed picture [...] difficult to attribute it to the Olympic Games".
Professor Fred Coalter, University of Stirling. London 2012: A Sustainable Sporting Legacy? in A. Vigor et al (2004) After the Gold Rush, A Sustainable Olympics for London (London) APPEAR, Demos

Available data suggest little change in physical activity patterns during the 1980s and much of the 1990s in Australia. However, between 1997 and 2000 the proportion of Australians reporting lower-than recommended levels of physical activity rose (from 49% to 54%) and the proportion of people reporting 'no physical activity' also rose slightly between 1997 and 2000 (from 14% to 16%). The prospect of the Games led to no radical lifestyle changes in Australia, other than a change in television viewing habits (sports where Australia had performed well, and won medals, attracted a higher viewing audience after the Games).
UBS Investment Research (2006) Winning by taking part: east London's economy and the Olympics, , February 23

All the information below is sourced from a statement by Stuart Dennison made in February 2005, unless stated.

Local sporting facilities all over London are strapped for cash and in short supply. Sports England recommend one swimming pool for every 20,000 residents. Yet in Olympic boroughs Waltham Forest and Hackney alone there is a striking deficit. Waltham Forest has five pools (one for every 44,000 residents, a deficit of six -- Waltham Forest Guardian, August 11, 2006), Hackney beleaguered by infrastructural calamities has only one, and two currently under construction. Even a richer borough such as Bexley, in South London, has a deficit of eight pools according to the Sports London criteria (Bexley Times, August 3, 2006). And despite Tessa Jowell's normative pronouncements, even youth boxing in the capital is underfunded compared to the rest of the country and deprioritised when it comes to competition for premises (Islington Gazette, August 14, 2006).

Thousands of people use the Hackney Marshes, and other open areas of the Lower Lea, for informal physical recreation such as cycling, running, walking, circuit training, horse riding, canoeing, angling, kite flying and frisbee. Paths along the canal through the former industrial area are used by joggers and walkers; cyclists use the canal and Lea Navigation towpaths, the national cycle trails which run up the valley, and Eastway Cycle Circuit, which hosts road racing time trials (now to be relocated seven miles away at Hog Hill, Redbridge), BMX stunt cycling, and mountain biking, as well as community projects such as a cycling club for the learning disabled and training for local school children. All this will be lost.

£340 million was siphoned off from sports lottery distributors to promote the London bid. The Department of Culture, Media and Sport admit that £64 million per annum of lottery funding will be diverted to the Olympic developments between 2005 2012.
A cross party committee of MPs said in March 2004 that money earmarked for Olympic developments is "a straightforward raid" on lottery funds for projects outside of London. Meanwhile, no sports lottery grants were given out during 2004 in London. Amongst the direct victims were Hackney Rugby Club and Lea Rowing Club.

The Olympic developments will take away 11 football pitches, breaking up the area used by the Hackney and Leyton Sunday League. 1,500 players compete here every Sunday (on a total of 140 pitches). A 10 hectare plot on East Marsh is to be used by 400 coaches bringing spectators in from park and ride schemes around the M25. Research last year by the London Green Party showed that the equivalent of 1,500 pitches had been lost in the past ten years in London, a decline particularly acute in east London. Anne Woollett of the Hackney Marsh User Group charges that the break up of the marsh pitches is commensurate to "a loss of community" for the men that play. A Guardian newspaper feature on the Hackney and Leyton Sunday League can be found at .

Football celebrities that trained on the Marshes include David Beckham, Harry Redknapp, Terry Venables, Ray Wilkins, Rodney Marsh, Laurie Cunningham, Paul Ince, Jermaine Defoe and Ashley Cole. Bobby Moore and fellow members of the 1966 England World Cup Squad, Martin Peters, Geoff Hurst and Jimmy Greaves also trained on the Lower Lea Valley pitches (D. Rice & R. Ludgate, Mail on Sunday, September 25, 2005).

At first glance, cyclists stand to gain from millions being pumped into developing the cycle facilities: a one mile road circuit, three mile cross country circuit, both set in wildlife conservation areas. But the Olympic developments will mean the closure of existing facilities for three to five years, and shorten the cross country circuit and overall area by half. The proposed £340 million from the lottery is money that will be lost to other causes, many of which will be grass roots sport. It represents a huge diversion of money towards a tiny elite.
Stuart Dennison, Bikefix Ltd.; cycle activist

As the London 2012 bid gained momentum, the 'Olympic boroughs' organised an afternoon of cycling events for youngsters at the Eastway Cycle Circuit, site of the Olympic velopark. Waltham Forest's team of six cycle trainers refused to turn up for work. We went on strike because we recognise that our work, which is to actively promote healthy outdoor recreation for all, would not be helped but hindered by a successful London bid. In terms of funding, environment and facilities, London 2012 will make it harder for the average person to get on their bike, locally and nationally.
Ru Litherland, cycle trainer, London Borough of Waltham Forest

See also Briefing paper 2, Finances, profiteering and infrastructure, for more on the bankrolling of elite athletes.

This essay is part of the Games Monitor briefing papers available for download from our Media Centre page.