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Highway to Greed - Westfield's high-security Olympic rat-run A heavily secured transit route, known as the 'Northern Retail Lifeline', is to be carved through the Olympic Park so that 4x4 drivers can be shepherded through to Westfield to do their Christmas shopping this year - while cyclists, pedestrians and public transport are banned from using the route. So much for the 'greenest Olympics ever'. The secure route, which is apparently required to meet a 'commitment' to Westfield, will offer all the charm and atmosphere of shopping in a war zone. It runs from the A12 Lea Interchange at Waterden Road, eastwards around the site perimeter road behind the Velodrome, then turns south and through the old Bully Point Nature Reserve (oh the irony) to the Athlete's Village and Stratford City. The planning application letter stresses:
The project is receiving funding from the GLA, though it is apparently not in the interests of London council tax payers to know the details of the arrangement. Mayor's decision ODD20 of 27/09/2010 agreed
From September 2011 it is intended to operate 24/7 and Westfield hope it will be carrying up to 1250 vehicles an hour, around 50% of the total visiting traffic and representing significant retail turnover at M&S and John Lewis and other such exotic outlets at the Stratford City mega mall. It is only expected to operate for 9 months as it will be removed again in June 2012 when the 'Games lockdown' occurs. At the start of the route drivers will be stopped and checked in a border-control style floodlit 'search plaza' enclosed with electrified fencing, featuring 6 vehicle search lanes, overlooked by tower-mounted CCTV, and equipped with barriers, rising blockers and height restrictors. A further vehicle screening area will be located at the Stratford City end of the route - though this will 'react only where threat or intelligence dictate'. It appears that vehicles will be stopped and 'selected' for searching on the whim of Westfield security staff who will be manning the security plaza:
The entire no-stopping route will be 'operated as a controlled space so that the integrity of the Olympic Park is not compromised', with around 80 CCTV cameras lining the route and the road enclosed within 3.6m mesh fencing. Enhanced lighting will be used to 'support surveillance and detection'. Low key surveillance is not the order of the day because
However it would be unfair to assume this is just an unprincipled orgy of concrete and hyper-surveillance designed to enable car-powered consumption under maximum threat levels. Contract tender documents make it clear that the highest environmental and ethical standards are expected. The fact that no-one can walk down this road is no obstacle to good intentions, and this will come as no surpise to connoisseurs of London 2012 hypocrisy:
While biodiversity and multiculturalism box-ticking isn't forgotten and it is expected that the contractor
and as if anything was still surviving inside the Olympic apocalypse zone
References: Happy shopping! Submitted by Charles Batsworth on Mon, 28/02/2011 - 18:06. Article | 2012 Construction | 2012 Sustainability | 2012 Transport | Cycling | Roads | Sustainability |
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