Olympic Stadium and part of the Games park

Londoners ‘not getting what they have been promised’ from Olympic Park

Luke Jacobs Thursday, September 27, 2012
7:00 AM

Olympic legacy chiefs have defended their plans for the Park after criticism from a City Hall politician.

Andrew Boff, leader of the London Assembly Conservatives, said there should be more family housing and fewer apartments on the re-opened Olympic Park in Stratford.

In his report, Radically Normal, he calls on the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) to build homes with four bedrooms or more.

He said: “Done well, the development of the Olympic Park has the ability to re-define regeneration in London.

“But as some of the plans for the housing currently stand, Londoners are not getting what they have been promised.

“London needs more, larger, high quality family sized homes to combat our deepening housing crisis.”

The Olympic Park has been shut since the last day of the Paralympic Games, control will be handed to the LLDC on Monday.

Venues will be dismantled and the site reopened as a sporting and cultural venue next summer.

The former Athletes’ Village will be transformed into an estate containing 2,818 homes, half of which is designated as social housing.

Mr Boff said the planned Marshgate Wharf development does not meet the “high standards” set by Chobham Manor.

He added: “Designing and building terraced houses that look normal and repetitive, yet in which people want to live, takes courage.”

An LLDC spokesman said its masterplan has the flexibility to change according to housing need.

She said: “The five planned neighbourhoods on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park will provide thousands of Londoners with family homes, new schools and jobs.

“Community needs for affordable and family housing are at the heart of our award winning plans, which also strike a balance to ensure that the development is economically viable.

“We welcome the debate about how to address London’s housing shortage.”