The Commercial Games - How Commercialism is Overrunning the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games

"The Olympics claim to stand for pure ideals, for sports, culture and education. Unfortunately, the overwhelming cultural influence at the Olympics is now commercial culture; and the overwhelming informational message is: buy, buy, buy."

A London Olympic Bid for 2012 - House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee 2003

Third Report of Session 2002-03

An enquiry into the Government's decision making process on whether to support a London bid for the 2012 Olympic Games. Completed shortly before the Cabinet decision to proceed with the bid. Excerpts -

February 2010 report of investigation by the Economic Development, Culture, Sport and Tourism Committee of the London Assembly:

• To review how, when, and by whom, decisions about the legacy uses of

See attachment.

Clause 7.2 of especial interest in respect of legacy costs.

Olympics Bid London 2012
Probability assessment for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport

Price Waterhouse Coopers, January 2003

Olympic Games Impact Study: Final Report Dec 2005

Produced by Price Waterhouse Coopers for the DCMS to assess the likely national, regional and local impacts of hosting the Olympics in London.

The social cultural and economic ecology of a place is as fragile as any other ecology. In March and April 2009 muf architecture/art commissioned by Design For London - mapped the activities and businesses of Hackney Wick. We uncovered both significant activity but also the negative repercussions of the presence of the Olympic site namely landlords unwilling to give artists and businesses (creative and otherwise) sufficiently long leases and businesses who had either left or were planning to leave.

The Fluid Survey was carried out in August and September 2004. It followed two meetings at the end of November 2003 and in February 2004 at which the LDA had met with the Clays Lane community. At the first meeting the LDA had said the estate would be demolished even if the Olympics did not come to London. It had produced a drawing of a non-Olympic scenario at the meeting in November. Enquiries by residents showed that in reality there was no such non-Olympic plan and later, at the CPO Inquiry in 2006, Jason Prior, the Olympics Masterplanner, revealed in his evidence that an investigation into a non-Olympic plan for the area was not even commissioned until the summer of 2004 and was then abandoned as unviable.