Residents and businesses in London want a piece of the pie in return for their cooperation in London’s bid for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games.
Campaigners in east London have submitted a list of minimum requirements to ensure local people benefit from the promised massive regeneration, reports the Guardian newspaper.
According to the newspaper three hundred companies will be displaced as well as the Kingsway International Christian Centre, London’s largest church. Land owned by a Muslim Alliance could also be affected, including the proposed site of what would be the largest mosque in Europe.
The East London Community Organisations group (Telco) has told London 2012 organizers that all jobs in the Lower Lea Valley – site of the proposed Olympic zone – must pay at least 6.70 pounds an hour.
And the group, which is the umbrella for 40 smaller groups, says all of the highly lucrative construction contracts must include clauses ensuring that at least 30 per cent of the labour will be local.
Activists also want a share of the highly paid skilled jobs. Telco wants a guaranteed sum allocated by the Learning and Skills Council to make sure locals can compete and a community land trust to administer housing schemes, including homes built for the Olympic Village.
Neil Jameson, a Telco organizer said, “we must have these guarantees written in from the outset because history teaches us that without them we will be overlooked. We have been regularly promised bread and circuses. Historically we get the circuses but not the bread. There is support for the Olympics but on our terms”.
The newspaper reports that according to an opinion poll carried out by London’s mayor, Londoners support the city’s bid for the 2012 Games.
The proposed Olympic Village in Stratford will leave a legacy of 5,000 homes and a giant aquatic centre.
