Games Monitor

Good points Julian.
To put it mildly, Mr Higgins' follow up comment is even more disingenuous (or misinformed or confused) - than his original posting.

First he states that "very few developments are going ahead as companies are choosing not to invest". Westfield have repeatedly made it clear they consider the business outlook for the retail centre they plan to build at Stratford to be very promising, regardless of the current economic climate, as in this Business Spectator article:

Mr Lowy (Westfield managing director) has also pointed to the group's strong performance in the London market despite fears of a recession in the UK, with current retail space failing to keep pace with demand.

"London is a very, we feel, underserviced city in any case with regards to retailing infrastructure, and the two projects we are doing there we expect to get very good long-term returns because of that, " Mr Lowy said.

His claim that Westfield would have abandoned the project were it not for the Olympics is also refuted by the company's own publicity - in a Times article from July 2008 :

Yet Westfield is not looking merely at the Games, but beyond them. Michael Gutman, its managing director for Europe, claims that the shopping centre would work with or without London 2012.

“The company has seen many difficult economic periods over 50 years,” Mr Gutman said. “We are looking to the long term. Whatever comes from the Olympics is a plus, but we believe in the fundamental underlying demand.”

As for the ODA persuading the developers to proceed with "the decision to invest up to £1/2 billion in infrastructure linking the Stratford site to the surrounding community" - I can only conclude that he is getting confused and thinking of the Lend Lease's Olympic Village - here the ODA is indeed having to pay for up to £500m of infrastructure to ensure it gets built.
However for Stratford City, it is a condition of planning permission that the developers pay for essential infrastructure & transport improvements, necessary both for Stratford City and the Olympics.