Several weeks ago I came across the event featured below and thought it might be interesting to drop in. However, when I sent in my on-line application for a ticket I received a message saying I would have to wait to find out if my application had been accepted. The site run by the London Festival of Architecture also said there was no point in replying to the message as they were not organising the event and I should contact the event organisers directly. But the site failed to say who the organisers were!

While recently reading the New Economics Foundation report 'Fools Gold, How the 2012 Olympics is selling East London short, and a 10 point plan for a more positive local legacy', I came across a reference to a report '2012 Home Games' published in 2006 by East Thames Group. East Homes, a part of the group, is a Registered Social Landlord which is "the largest multi-tenure landlord across east London and Essex, providing general needs accommodation and home ownership initiatives for the Group.”

Waterlogged Allotments at Marsh Lane Fields. Feb 2008 © Martin Slavin

American landscape architects are promising east Londoners a park that will be "equivalent to Hyde Park" and "will give the area an equal weight to the west" (Olympics will leave east London an open space to rival Hyde Park, March 17). However, there are fundamental questions about the way the park and its surrounding developments are being planned that your article fails to address.

On 15th January leaders of the five London 'Host Boroughs' submitted a written memorandum to the House of Commons Select Committee for Culture, Media and Sport. This outlined their concerns about how well the ODA were likely to supply adequate design and financing to a sustainable social legacy for the people of those boroughs.

When does a building on the Olympic site become derelict? The answer, when the LDA takes it over. The 2012 blog (see below) describes a tower block, which used to belong to the University of East London, as having been 'derelict for a number of years'. So I wonder how that came about? Maybe the building was abandoned due to its appalling state. No, it was rendered derelict by the LDA after they took it over from the University of East London in the summer of 2005.

Clays Lane Co-op under demolition Photo by Mike WellsNot the blue fence but the Fencing Hall falls out! Pity. Clays Lane residents suggested events like this could easily be held in other locations meaning their estate could have been taken out of the Park. In fact, we tried to argue that the whole Games could have been parcelled out to a range of existing facilities!

It is now reported that the hall, which is at present located next to the Athletes' Village, may not be built and the event could be relocated to the Excel Centre at a saving of £90m. Hardly an original idea and one specifically put forward by residents at the Compulsory Purchase Inquiry.

The UK 'National Housing Federation' has just published its annual report on the state of the UK housing market, Titled 'Home Truths'. The blurb says:

"Home Truths: The case for 70,000 new social homes a year, is our annual state of the nation report on housing supply and affordability. It gives the latest facts and figures on housing in an easily digestible format, and includes new projections showing that the average house price in England will break the £300,000 barrier by 2012."