Protesting the London Olympics Bid – 2005

Protesting the London Olympics Bid: On Saturday 19th February 2005 I sent for a guided walk around the proposed Olympic site on Stratford Marsh and then joined others in a protest march through the area to Hackney Marshes which would also be affected.

Protesting the London Olympics Bid - 2005
Small industries giving local employment which will disappear

The favourites for the games were Paris, and although public opinion in Britain largely backed the bid, there was rather less support by locals both because of the effects it would have on the area and the high coast which would mean an extra £20 per year on council tax.

Protesting the London Olympics Bid - 2005
One of the larger industrial sites, and a building in use as artists studios

Paris accused London of violating the rules but the decision was was made by a small majority in London’s favour.

Protesting the London Olympics Bid - 2005
Pudding Mill River and Old River Lee

After the success of the bid in July 2005 there were fears around the rest of the country that the extra spending on the games would mean diverting funds for more necessary work away from the rest of the country – which it did.

Protesting the London Olympics Bid - 2005
City Mill River and Warton House, formerly the Yardley perfume company’s Box Factory – preserved

And locally many suffered from the disruption of the works over an extensive area – with local businesses and some residents being forced out of the area.

This bridge had a local message for Seb Coe who heads London’s bid for the 2012 Olympic Games

Here I’ll reproduce – with appropriate minor corrections – the article I wrote along with some of the pictures I took on the day.

Site Walk, Bow Back Rivers

Saturday 19th February saw me in the Bow Back Rivers again, on another guided walk looking at the areas threatened by the London 2012 Olympic Bid. We walked along The Northern Outfall Sewer from Stratford High Road to Old Ford, then along the Old River Lea and back down the City Mill River.

Traditionally an area for dirty industries on the east of the city, a health and safety hell-hole, now with plenty of derelict land, but still providing local jobs that will all disappear if the bid goes through.

Much of the area will disappear under concrete, almost all redundant after the big event, with plans for its after use unpublished and unfunded.

At the moment it’s a rich wildlife environment, but all that will go, and the tidal Bow Back Rivers are likely to be lost or severely altered.

If the bid goes ahead it will severely distort a regeneration that needs to be based on local needs and priorities, and the trumpeted increased investment will largely create unwanted facilities that will be future millstones.

Hackney marshes. Football pitches will be concreted car parks for the Olympics

Not to mention the disruption over perhaps 15 years as the site is developed and then (if finances materialise) restored for use.

No London 2012 Olympics March

More local businesses that will close on Waterden Rd.

After the walk, we went to join the demonstration and protest march that was forming in Meridian Square outside Stratford Station. It wasn’t a huge event, with just over a hundred marchers, but I was surprised at the positive response from those hurrying by to catch trains or go shopping, many expressing support.

The march, on a bitter, dull afternoon, ended on Hackney Marshes, where considerable local sports facilities are due to be covered by car parks if the bid succeeds, with people playing games and a very spirited sack race.

View from the walkway over Carpenters Lock

I walked back to Stratford, again through the Olympic site, crossing over the Lea at one of the locks and along the side of the Waterworks River, with often dramatic lighting and the occasional light flurry of snow.

You can see the 2005 post on My London Diary and also many more pictures from the day


FlickrFacebookMy London DiaryHull PhotosLea ValleyParis
London’s Industrial HeritageLondon Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.


March for a People’s Olympics – 2012

March for a People’s Olympics: Twelve years ago on Saturday 28th June 2012 the London Olympics was in full swing and London was suffering from huge restrictions on the activities of ordinary Londoners.

March for a People's Olympics

Although the modern Olympic movement was started in 1894 by Pierre de Coubertin with high aims it has changed over the years to something very different. He intended them to help build a peaceful and better world by educating young people through sport and stated “The important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win, but to take part; the important thing in life is not triumph, but the struggle; the essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.”

March for a People's Olympics

Instead what we now have is a fiercely nationalistic event, with countries devoting huge resources into training a small elite of athletes and expenisve and highly detailed scientific research to find legal ways to enhance their performances – as well as at least in some countries to find ways to circumvent the tests designed to prevent the use of illegal drugs.

March for a People's Olympics

The games have also seen a corporate takeover to provide some of the huge sums needed to stage such events, although taxpayers have also suffered. London 2012 cost £8.77 billion, around three and a half times its original budget, around two thirds from general taxation, a quarter from the National Lottery and the remainder from the Mayor of London and the London Development Agency.

March for a People's Olympics

The money for the games in London meant there was less to spend in other areas or the country, and even diverted money from grass roots sport. And huge amounts were spent on infrastructure designed for the needs of a few weeks in 2012 rather than the best interests of the future for the Olympic area.

London in 2012 saw a huge military presence, in part aimed at reducing the risk of terrorist attacks and draconian policing largely aimed at the protection of the brands of the various sponsors.

The ‘Whose Games? Whose City?’ protest had at first been totally banned by the authorities as its start point was only just over 2km from the Olympic stadium. Transport for London had refused permission for them to march along roads which had been designated as emergency backup Games routes. Eventually the march organisers came to an agreement with the police that should an emergency arise the marchers would simply go on to the pavement – something that regularly happens with marches when ambulances and other emergency vehicles are allowed to pass.

The endpoint of the march, Wennington Green, was also around 2km as the crow flies from the stadium, and Tower Hamlets Council, owners of Wennington Green attempted to ban speeches or other events there.

Marchers were also threatened with arrest should they display placards, hold banners or even wear t-shirts with political slogans. But on the day there were no arrests although police did at one point stop and search a man who had cut a piece of police tape. He was released after a large and noisy crowd of marchers gathered around and demanded his release.

The attempts by the authorities to stop the march taking place had led to a great deal of media publicity and press and TV from around the world came to cover the start in Mile End Park.

The march organisers, the Counter Olympics Network (CON) pointed out strongly that this was not an anti-Olympics march, but one that protested at the way what should be a sporting event of noble origins has been taken over by corporate interests.

They pointed out that the games sponsors included “serial polluters, companies which seriously damage the environment and which wreck or take lives, Coca Cola, Rio Tinto, BP, Dow Chemical” as well as stating “G4S, Cisco, and Atos deny people their human rights in a variety of situations while Macdonalds helps to fuel the obesity epidemic. London2012 provides benefits at taxpayers’ expense while receiving little in return.”

They also pointed out the many broken promises and pointed out the doubts about the legacy of the games for East London in particular: “the lack of benefits for local people and businesses, the fantastic expansion of security into our daily lives, the deployment of missiles and large numbers of troops, the unwarranted seizure of public land at Wanstead Flats, Leyton Marsh and Greenwich Park.

As the march went past the former match factory soldiers on top of the flats watched the marchers who chanted
Hey Ho, Sebastian Coe
Get your missiles out of Bow

Another popular chant also mentioned Coe:
Seb Coe, Get Out, we know what you’re all about!
Missiles, job losses, Olympics for the bosses!”

Chris Nineham of the Stop The Olympic Missiles Campaign was one of the first speakers at the final rally. He pointed out that the London Olympics had already set a number of records, including the largest ever number of arrests on the first day – including 182 cyclists taking part in a ‘Critical Mass’ ride the previous day – the highest ticket prices, the most intensive application of branding rules and the highest level of militarisation of any Olympic games, with far more being spent on security that even in China.

There were, he said, more troops in London than at any time since World War 2, and more than at any time in Afghanistan, and that it was our presence there which made us a terrorist target, calling for the immediate withdrawal of our troops.

Much more about the protest and many more pictures at March for a People’s Olympics.


FlickrFacebookMy London DiaryHull PhotosLea ValleyParis
London’s Industrial HeritageLondon Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.