The bid proposes a scheme in which the games serve as an engine to spur city improvements, leaving behind a sustainable legacy after the games. Keith Mills, chief executive of the bid, was quoted in the Telegraph as saying, “There will be no white elephants at the London games. We’ll build what we need and no more.”

Though London’s planned new venues have not yet reached the design stage, Foreign Office Architects completed the master plan for the project, situating 70 percent of all venues within a 500-acre park 13 kilometers outside central London in the Lower Lea Valley, a river flood plain and run-down light industrial area. The park, designed by EDAW, an international urban design and planning firm, will restore the flood plain by removing existing river walls. London-based Allies and Morrison Architects and HOK Sport are also involved with the London bid.
An Olympic stadium, velodrome, aquatic center, and media center will be built along the valley in a plan that takes into account Richard Rogers’ Millennium Dome, situated 5 kilometers away, which will be recruited to serve as an Olympic venue. Norman Foster’s new Wembley Stadium, dubbed “The Church of Football” with its curved, partially retractable roof, will be completed in late 2005 and will serve the 2012 games.
The key to the success of London’s plan will be a reorganized transport system capable of shuttling visitors from central London out to the valley. Rail infrastructure already exists but new stations will be needed. The city’s bid hopes that 90 percent of visitors to the Olympics will be able to commute by train, given London’s congestion problems and corresponding steep tolls for motor transport. Athletes will be housed within walking distance from most venues in the valley, though commutes to distant venues like Wembley could be daunting.

http://www.london2012.org/en/bid/the+olympic+park/the+village.htm

The most spacious accommodation in Games history

The Olympic Village would be built at the heart of the Olympic Park in east London. The Village would offer guaranteed accommodation for every athlete and team official, with more than 17,000 beds in total. The location within the main Olympic Park means that 80 per cent of Olympic athletes and 95 per cent of Paralympic athletes would be within 20 minutes of their competition venues.

Athletes would have an inspirational view of the main stadium and the Olympic Flame from their apartments in the Village. Every apartment would provide comfortable accommodation and state-of-the-art communications facilities, including internet access and wireless networking.
The plans retain London's tradition of building homes around communal squares and courtyards, with water features accentuating the closeness of the River Lea.
Shops, restaurants, medical and media facilities would be available on site, and athletes would have easy access to the travel and leisure facilities of the adjacent Stratford City complex.
The Olympic Javelin high-speed shuttle would link the village to central London in just seven minutes.
All facilities would be accessible to wheelchair users, ensuring the village would be equally suitable to the needs of Paralympic athletes.
And after the Games, the Olympic Village would lie at the heart of one of Europe's largest urban regeneration projects.
East London would benefit from new nursery, primary and secondary schools.
The converted village alone would provide 3,600 homes, many of which would be affordable.
In all 9,000 new homes would be created in the Olympic Park area.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200412300550.html

Paris Favoured for 2012 Olympics
Vanguard (Lagos)
December 24, 2004
Posted to the web December 30, 2004
Paris Favoured for 2012 Olympics… Opinion polls show that Londoners are less keen to host the games than the inhabitants of Paris, with some arguing the money would be better spent on hospitals, schools or redevelopment…

http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/news/bullying_and_bribery.htm

NEWS May 6th 2004 BULLYING & BRIBERY THE NEW OLYMPIC GAMES

As London's bid to host the 2012 Olympics steams patriotically ahead, a Corporate Watch investigation has revealed that Ken Livingstone's London Development Agency (LDA) are threatening residents of the proposed Olympic site with Compulsory Purchase Orders if they do not agree to sell their homes and businesses, and relocate to make way for the developers.
At a meeting held last November in Stratford Town Hall, Tony Winterbottom, one of the LDA's directors, confirmed that businesses would be 'encouraged to relocate', but that Compulsory Purchase Orders would be used if necessary. In fact, by his own admission, without the use of CPO's, the LDA would only have half of the land needed to site the Games.
Residents of Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest, which all form part of the Olympic site plan, had been promised that that, should the bid go ahead, their boroughs would benefit from an almost magical transformation. 'London 2012 would be the key catalyst to the most significant urban and environmental regeneration ever seen in London' assures the bid's official site. In fact, London's Joint Planning Authorities Team (JPAT), responsible for overseeing the planning process, has just sent back part of the bid's application, on the grounds that there were 'sixty or seventy issues in the Environmental Statement which needed clarification', according to a JPAT spokesman.
The meeting at Stratford Town Hall disclosed 'widespread unease and frustration' among local people. They are unlikely to be convinced by the finer details behind the official website's grand promises. Benefit no. 3 of staging the Olympics is, according to the website: 'Anecdotally, participation in sport has led to downturns in youth crime'. Leaving the 'anecdotally' aside, it is easy to wonder what kind of participation in sport, precisely. Watching the construction companies as they move in to turn Hackney Marshes — currently a thriving local football venue — into an Olympic coach park, perhaps.
The fact that, as the website points out, the Olympics are proven to be 'a significant boost to the convention industry', is also unlikely to console residents whose homes are under threat, or the local businesses which will supposedly flourish despite being forced to close up and move elsewhere. But there are, certainly, parties who will benefit. The letters of support on the official website tellingly include those from Bechtel, Jarvis, the Bank of Japan and McDonalds. It is, however, the taxpayers who will supply most of the money to host the Games — just as in Athens, where the Games are currently thirty percent over budget, leaving the Greek taxpayers, who have already stumped up £3.3 billion, to find an extra £1.5 billion to support them.
Other concerns with previous Olympics include the fact that in Los Angeles, Atlanta and Seoul, Korea, there was wholesale removal of homeless people and criminalising of poverty to make way for the businesses. In Atlanta, 8000 people were removed from the streets. Community and environmental groups are already making a noise over Vancouver's pursuit to host the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, with critics concerned about the lasting economic, environmental, political and social impacts of doing so. While currently, in New York, a determined coalition of residents and small business owners looks likely to succeed in blocking that city's bid for the 2012 Games. Unless London residents do the same, the way will then be left clear for London and Paris to fight it out between them. Bechtel and Jarvis, however, are certain to win; as are McDonalds, Visa, and CocaCola — just three of the Games' official sponsors.
The International Olympic Committee’s global sponsorship program is known as TOP. According to Olympic marketing officials, a single four-year TOP sponsorship sells for $65 million or more. Never mind if the company involved is the antithesis of everything the Olympics are alleged to stand for – if it can afford it, it gets the deal. And when you're a 'Worldwide Olympic Partner' there are a lot of benefits to be had.
These include:
Use of all Olympic imagery, as well as appropriate Olympic designations on products
Hospitality opportunities at the Olympic Games
Direct advertising and promotional opportunities, including preferential access to Olympic broadcast advertising
On-site concessions/franchise and product sale/showcase opportunities
Ambush marketing protection
Acknowledgement of their support through a broad Olympic sponsorship recognition programme
Unsurprisingly, the TOP sponsorship programme enjoys one of the highest sponsorship renewal rates of any sports property. But if you're thinking about doing anything about all this then bear in mind Rule 61 of the Olympic Charter which states that 'No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in the Olympic areas.' In previous Games, the definition of 'Olympic Areas' has been extended to cover vast swathes of the host city…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/3937425.stm

BBC - Panorama: Buying the Games BBC One, Wednesday, 4 August 2004 at 21:00 BST

After previous scandals, the Athens Olympics are being presented as a return to the Olympian ideals; integrity and fair play. Panorama, however, reveals evidence that the votes of a member of the International Olympic Committee — the private club that controls the Games — is still being offered for sale.
During a year long investigation, Panorama went undercover to find out what it takes to get the Games, and it would appear that the answer is simple — cash. Representatives from the programme posed as consultants acting for clients with business interests in east London who wanted the games to come to London.
The men who say they can help secure these votes are veteran Olympic insiders: professional agents who, in the past, have been paid hundreds of thousands of pounds by previous bid cities to help get IOC votes. These men have connections to influential figures within the IOC. All claim they have already been approached for their services by cities bidding for the 2012 Games.

http://www.gamesbids.com/cgi-bin/news/viewnews.cgi?category=1&id=1105025319

Thursday, January 06, 2005 IOC President Blamed For His Silence In Vote Buying Attempts Posted 10:28 am ET (GamesBids.com)

Goran Takac, one of four sports agents implicated in the BBC Panorama documentary who promised 54 votes for London’s 2012 Summer Olympic bid, has sent a letter to International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge, which was published in the Serbian daily Glas Javnosti. In the letter Takac blamed Rogge for knowing about the alleged bribery attempts and remaining silent, and when the documentary was aired Rogge suppressed what he knew.
Ivan Slavkov was suspended from the IOC last August after Panorama filmed him allegedly discussing how votes could be bought to help influence the 2012 decision.
Meanwhile Focus News Agency reports that Slavkov has rejected a deal offered to him by Rogge. In a letter sent November 26 to Slavkov Rogge said Slakov could resign from the IOC and all charges against him would be dismissed. Slavkov could also remain President of the Bulgarian Football Union and the Bulgarian Olympic Committee.