Olympic Legacy

[Bazile]

So , what will be the Olympic Legacy and how will it benefit anyone living north of the Watford gap ?

[jno]

might encourage them too to think they could be Olympic champions some day? Or do you just mean money? I don't know what financial plans are being thought up.

[Gromit]

Billions have watched worldwide on TV and we can expect a tourism boost for the next few years which benefit the whole country.

[Bazile]

In the early days after being awarded the games , there was constant comments that the Legacy was very important .

I'm just wondering what I should be expecting

[Bazile]

Gromit - the whole country ,or just London

[Canary42]

So many have stayed in watching TV, the legacy will be millions more couch potatoes

[Ric.ror]

Well when I next go to London - in September - I think I will have a little look around the village and stadium

[Gromit]

Foreign tourists do not just stay in London, they visit places all over the country. Tourism is worth £115billion to our economy, not an insignificant sum.

[bednobs]

also, it's hoped that it will have encouraged kids to take up sports. Even if they don't become olympic champions, kids doing sport has got to be a good thing.

[anotheoldgit]

jno

/// might encourage them too to think they could be Olympic champions some day? ///

Are not a large percentage of the recent Medal winners from north of the Watford gap?

[New Judge]

By the autumn, when the excrement has hit the air conditioning (once again) in the shambles that is the "euro crisis" the Olympics will be but a dim and distant memory. So entrenched will Europe (including the UK) be,bogged down by fiscal and financial difficulties and the potential uncontrolled break up of the single currency,that any "legacy" left by the games will be completely lost in the noise.

As far as getting youngsters to participate in sport goes, only privately educated children will get much of a chance to do that at school. The teaching unions that control the State education system will not countenence anything that remotely resembles organised competitive sport and their members will not take part in any extra-curricular activities that are so necessary for that to be successful. Furthermore, most children simply do not have the application or concentration necessary to take part. Of course there will still be the few that do succeed, but they will do so in spite of the State education system, not because of it.

The legacy of the "hardware" will be a stadium that will have to be virtually demolished to make it suitable for Premiership football (the only sport with the funds to use it), a big mud hole in Greenwich Park where the horses have trod, an acquatic centre festering for lack of funds to run it, and the demolition of the fine exhibition centre at Earls Court to make way for housing. The only venue that might have a decent future is the velodrome. The Olympic Village is to be converted into predominantly "affordable" housing, which means it will be occupied mainly by foreigners and single mothers.

London has had its party but, like all the other Olympic cities in recent times, all it will have to show for its efforts (and its taxpayers' cash) is a few delapidated structures which visitors will gaze upon fondly as they slowly decay. Of course the proposed "legacy" is being hyped just as the Games draw to a close but in time people will realise that it cost them £9bn, which they didn't have, for a fortnight's street party which made them feel good at the time.

[dotty.]

Bradley Wiggins lives in the next village, he's been given the freedom of our borough, I think it will mean people will flock here to have their picture taken with the 2 gold post boxes, well. not flock exactly, maybe have a nosey, once they see the rip off car parking charges in the town though they'll do a drive by on their mobiles.

[Kromovaracun]

"The Olympic Village is to be converted into predominantly "affordable" housing, which means it will be occupied mainly by foreigners and single mothers."

What, exactly, is wrong with single mothers?

Do they not need housing?

[jno]

I was answering the first part of the question, aog. I understand numerous Yorkshirepersons did win medals.

[Hopkirk]

The legacy is that we are all raring to put on our trainers and do some physical activity.





Aren't we?

[New Judge]

There is nothing wrong with single mothers (or for that matter foreigners) Kromo. They've chosen their lifestyle and they are very welcome to it. But here comes the "but"....

I've no objection to anybody adopting whichever style of life best suits them...provided it does not affect me and mine and that I do not have to pay for it. When the authorities talk of "affordable" housing they largely mean "free" (or very nearly free) accommodation. Whoever occupies the affordable portion of the former Olympic Village there is no doubt that the owners will receive very little from the tenants themselves. Most of the revenue will be in the form of Housing Benefit (aka recycled tax revenue).

UK and London taxpayers have contributed enormous sums towards the construction of the Olympic Village and whether the new tenants come from North or South of the Watford Gap there is little doubt that taxpayers will see little real return for their money.

So yes, of course single mothers need accommodation and whilst many of them are self-sufficient a large number of them are not. I just wish, before embarking on their chosen lifestyle, that they would consider whether they or the fathers of their children will be able to contribute a little towards putting a roof over their heads. It's a little disappointing that, having paid to build the properties in the first place, the taxpayer also has to pay the rent and Council Tax of those fortunate enough to be given a tenancy.

[BayBoy1]

New Judge , I wish you were the PM , or the Mayor of London . YOU Have more common sense than the two of them put together,I would vote for you .

[Brenden]

Well said New Judge -

[ichkeria]

When it comes to 'legacy' I believe these Games are the first to espouse that ideal. One thing the success of the Games be it organisationally or competitively teaches us is that we will largely get out what we put in - or at the very least we will get nowt out if we put nowt in. And likewise I suspect that if we adopt a negative attitude vis a vis 'legac' then we'll ne rewarded in kind. In other words we shouldn't just sit back and wait for Legacy' to benefit us.

[ichkeria]

Another lesson: you can't necessarily put a price on success. If you measure merely by balance sheets you will often spectacularly miss the point. Of course in perhaps the majority of cases that rule does not apply but it applies sometimes and this might well be one of them.

[jno]

single mothers choose their lifestyle? I think you'll find that, in one or two cases, it's chosen for them by men abandoning them and their children.