It's a question being asked more and more about the Olympics. $20billion? Is it really worth it? For three weeks? Yeah, it's a lot! What could we get for that money? Jobs, health care, elderly care, roads, education, homeless shelters, affordable housing... NoBostonOlympics videos of Bostonians talking back about lost opportunities, lack of transparency in the bid, thumbs down to Boston2024....

A website has begun publishing news and comment about the Olympic Park. It is called London Olympic Park Watch. It

"...aims to be an independent, balanced, open-minded, and constructively critical, observer of the next phase in the life of the Olympic Park."

Anticipating the effect of the Coalition’s Local Housing Allowance reforms

The Government paid out £8bn in Housing Benefit in England in 2009/10, of which £1.5bn was spent in London. In an attempt to reduce this, a number of changes are being introduced to the Local Housing Allowance (LHA), which sets the maximum amount of rent that can be met from Housing Benefit. From 2011 LHA is being reduced from the median level of local rents to the 30th percentile and an absolute limit is being imposed on the allowance. From 2013, LHA will be increased in line with consumer price inflation (CPI) not with rents themselves. Cumulative CPI inflation between 1997/8 and 2007/8, for England, was 20%, compared with 70% for rents.

A report on the impacts of the Olympic Games and Paralympics on host cities

Dr Mary Smith
London East Research Institute Working Papers
December 2008

Two newspapers have recently carried stories linking Stratford City and the Olympics. The Telegraph came up with 'London 2012 Olympics: legacy arrives early with the 2011 opening of Westfield Stratford' claiming the Olympics had resulted in the project being delivered 'seven years earlier than planned'. Dave Hill in the Guardian headlined his blog 'Olympic Park: Boris, shopping and visions of the good society' saying 'The Mayor profits from good news stories about the Olympics'.

The Property world is getting excited by the interest supposedly being showed in the Athletes’ Village and the Media Centre. Of course, expressions of interest are not the same as money on the table. But even if the money does materialise what does this signify? That property tycoons see an opportunity to make a profit? And that profit will be made at a loss to the public purse of at least £150million on the Village and an unknown sum on the Media Centre.

Legacy housing to meet the desperate housing shortage facing the better off appears to be the grand design of the OPLC. Regeneration 'expert' Lady Ford considers back to basics neo-Georgian and Regency housing on a grander scale is what is needed: "London is crying out for decent-quality family housing both to rent and to buy and, given the assets here, this is destined to be a park for London families. I think this masterplan has a much sharper focus and reflects the best of London."

The Fluid Survey was carried out in August and September 2004. It followed two meetings at the end of November 2003 and in February 2004 at which the LDA had met with the Clays Lane community. At the first meeting the LDA had said the estate would be demolished even if the Olympics did not come to London. It had produced a drawing of a non-Olympic scenario at the meeting in November. Enquiries by residents showed that in reality there was no such non-Olympic plan and later, at the CPO Inquiry in 2006, Jason Prior, the Olympics Masterplanner, revealed in his evidence that an investigation into a non-Olympic plan for the area was not even commissioned until the summer of 2004 and was then abandoned as unviable.