In mid 2009 IWW members produced a report on health and safety at Stratford City. Regrettably, it seems their concerns about the nature of working practices on the site have proved well-founded. On 16th December 2009, Shaun Scurry, an employee of Firesafe Installations, died after suffering serious injuries in a lift accident on 9th December 2009 at the Westfield Stratford City shopping centre site. Shaun from Kirkby, Liverpool, was 39, the father of two sons and engaged to be married. He was reportedly trapped between a steel beam and an industrial lift when he was installing lagging to ductwork. The accident is being investigated by the Health and Safety Executive. In January 2010, the IWW members updated their report, which is attached.

After more than a year of seriously annoying and disturbing the residents of Leabank Square with dust and noise from its construction project the Olympic Delivery Authority has further turned the screw by insisting that residents should desist from denouncing a member of staff. In comments, although not in articles, posted on the Leabank Square blogspot residents had vigorously condemned the performance of the ODA’s community relations manager, Giorgia Sharpe. The author of the blog was threatened by an ODA lawyer with libel action if he didn’t remove the criticisms.

Olympic contractor tests a soil sample for radiation with a Geiger counter. Photo © Mike Wells

A document obtained from an undisclosed source reveals that hazardous radioactive waste was excavated and moved within the London Olympic Park before official permission was granted.

The BBC documentary, ‘Last Stand at Stratford’, part of the series ‘Building the Olympic Dream’, shown on BBC 2 on Wednesday 11th March was to have featured those being evicted to make way for the 2012 Olympics over three programmes. However, BBC chiefs decided to cut their participation to one programme. Consequently the Travellers, who were filmed for almost two years, were left out altogether. A number of residents at Clays Lane were included in the filming but in the event I was the only resident featured. Lance Forman of Forman’s Salmon Smokery ended up representing the businesses while the Manor Gardens Allotment holders survived as the only community on show.

Washing day at Leabank Square

I recently found a message on my phone from a journalist at BBC Radio London, who had seen the Games Monitor article about noise and dust at Leabank Square, ‘Hackney Wick residents complain about noise and dust from the Olympic Park’. She wanted to get in touch with Shona Abantu-Choudhury, who had been complaining on behalf of residents. But by the time I got back to her she said they had already done the programme and anyway the problems had been ‘resolved’. Really! I asked who had told them this. The ODA. Hmmm! I said I didn’t think so and just in case I would ask Shona when I next saw him. ‘No way!’ he said. Well, that’s public relations.

Residents in Hackney Wick have protested at the dust and noise being produced from the Olympic Park. The statement reproduced below was sent on Sunday 6th July to Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, David Higgins, Chief Executive of the ODA and Sebastian Coe, along with other relevant officials and representatives, by Sona Abantu-Choudhury on behalf of the Leabank Square Residents Association about the disturbance being caused by work on the Olympic site.

Further to my earlier article about contamination at the former Eastway cycle track the HSE responded after nine weeks (see email below). I remain astonished that it took nine weeks for the HSE to be able to summarise the monitoring being undertaken at the Eastway site. I would have thought the information would be readily to hand but apparently not.

Tessa Jowell was recently asked in the House of Commons about the rehousing of those displaced by the Olympics. Her written response can be seen below. It is followed by a response from a resident who was evicted.

Last weekend I decided to pay a short visit to Clays Lane to see what was happening to the old homestead in Crabtree Courtyard as the Travellers have reported that demolition has started on the housing. From the roadway outside the estate looked untouched apart from some windows being knocked in. The Travellers have been complaining about dust and noise from the site and the flow of heavy vehicles along the service road.

Did the Millennium Dome site kill Joe Ferguson? He spent four years working on a massive clean-up of the poisoned area in Greenwich, South London.

Carcinogenic chemicals, including arsenic and benzene, were dug up from the old gas works - the largest in Europe.

It was the statement, in the various bits of evidence produced to justify the Compulsory Purchase Order, that the ‘socio-economic impact would be negligible’(on the residents of Clays Lane) that should have set off alarm bells. It did with me, anyway, and with others engaging with the process of objecting to the Order.

Town and Country Planning Act 1990 As Amended

Description : Demolition of existing depot storage building and removal of trees and erection of a permanent Gypsy and Traveller"s site to accommodate a total of seven pitches along with associated ancillary amenity blocks, new access road, parking and pedestrian strips, landscaping and refuse storage.

© Mike Wells, 0 77 99 152 888, mikejwells@yahoo.com

Synopsis

For more than a century what will be the Olympic Park was home to some of the nation’s dirtiest industries. Within, and surrounding, what will be the Olympic Park some 7,500 people were employed in the chemicals industry. A new document reveals a second case of radioactive waste dumped in 1953 in a former landfill site within the Park. An Environment Agency analysis shows higher than normal levels of radioactive material in the River Lee. The article examines the historical information available, includes quotes from experts and lawyers, and is critical of the LDA’s work in the Park, which local residents fear puts them at risk. Mike Wells is also a photographer. The article comes with photographs.

Geologists have given warning that developers must take full account of the geology beneath the Olympic park and, more widely, in the Thames Gateway area from Tower Bridge to Thurrock.

The emerging debacle of the escalating costs of the Games are providing the most disingenuous twists of logic and language. Ken Livingstone now states that the rising costs are not associated with the Games but with the ‘Legacy’, as if it were a leech that had insinuated itself into the proceedings. ‘Legacy’, we were told when the bid was successful, was one of the reasons which helped win. ‘Legacy’ was all about regeneration of an area typified as a black hole, despite it housing over 250 businesses, housing low-wage families and individuals and having a significant urban wildlife associated with the waterways and derelict land.

E-mail from Julie Sumner of Manor Gardens Allotments to Jenny Jones of the GLA Mon, 6 Nov 2006

Jack Lemley, who was chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA), claims that in the 15 months since London won the Games, no remediation work has begun on the 757-acre site in east London.

Allotments near Bully Point Nature Reserve Information in this section is sourced from a report by environmental consultant Annie Chipchase, and a statement by Anne Woollett, Chair of the Hackney Marsh User Group, made in Febrary 2005, unless stated.