According to the BBC, there are some ambitious (read: another £1bn) plans to ‘transform’ the Lower Lea Valley into a ‘Water City’ as the scheme is named.
Derelict waterways from Canary Wharf to the Royal Docks and from Greenwich to Hackney Marshes are to be refurbished and turned into new green space at the heart of the massive gentrification project that aims to turn the entire East End into a giant shopping mall; not figuratively, but actually, in the form of Stratford City, a huge new shopping mall and office complex that planners see as the crux of the project:
“Our vision is to capture the entrepreneurial energy of east London’s remarkable communities and enable them to co-create Water City with the world’s finest architects, designers and economists and, in the process, transform the economic opportunities and life chances of east Londoners forever.”
Did I mention that there will have to be a new road built right through town centres in Stratford, Canning Town, West Ham, Hackney Wick and Bromley by Bow to link up all of these wonderful waterway projects?
The first of the projects, A £19m new lock at Prescott Channel in Bow, is going to begin this month, in an effort to keep lorries off the roads whilst hauling construction materials for construction of the Olympic village.
Not everyone is quite so enthusiastic about the project, particularly those who have had their homes and businesses forcibly taken under compulsory purchase orders.
I genuinely hope that some good comes of the Olympic process in east London, but I can’t help but think that it will all end up a giant mess; enormous council tax bills to pay for disused stadia surrounded by either derelict luxury hotels and abandoned commercial properties that left with the Games, or gated communities full of City refugees that sprung on the chance to push the immigrants, chavs and other class undesirables farther out of central London and on into Essex, if possible.
These are the ramblings of 
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