Tuesday 23 August 2011

OLYMPIC plan for Eastway agreed as dispute over Hog Hill looms


AT last, it seems the dispute over the configuration of the 2012 Olympic Games Legacy cycling road and off-road circuits, part of the Velopark to be constructed around the indoor velodrome on the Games site, has been settled.
It is 12 months now since the Olympic Park Legacy Company threw a spanner in the works, by demanding changes to the original layout which had planning permission, thus causing added grief to the cycling organisations who had laboured long and hard to see that the Legacy promised the sport when London won the Olympic bid in 2005 was delivered.
Which would enable the Eastway circuit which had existed on the Hackney site for over 30 years, and which cycling gave up willingly and in good faith, to return post Games.
Yes, we have a wonderful newly built Olympic Velodrome on the site of old Eastway. But unless Eastway can be returned better than it was, the road and off-road circuits the best that can be, the Games will have sold cycling short.

Remember, it was the Lea Valley Regional Park plan for a Velopark which won the Games for London. This plan predated the Olympic bid and was promised as an Olympic Legacy.
But as one issue is settled, more confusion. LOCOG now want use of Hog Hill for Olympic cyclists training next summer.
As a result, Eastway users fear that their temporary relocation to Hog Hill eight miles away is to be denied them, that a summer long season of racing will be cancelled! Hog Hill was provided for them late by the Olympic authorities and opened in 2008, two years after Eastway was closed.
Not so, say LOCOG, they will share the facility with public users!
They will produce a schedule for Olympic and public use. But the cycling world is right to remain remain sceptical that the arrangements being forced upon them won’t still turn the season upside down.
Whatever the outcome, it would have helped if LOCOG had told the users of their intentions before they put in planning application to Redbridge Borough Council to secure the site?
Instead, Eastway users found out second hand, on the reliable cycling grapevine.
Sometimes it must seem that LOCOG is a many headed serpent incapable of joined-up thinking?
The reason LOCOG want use of Hog Hill is because they are bound by the Olympic Charter to provide secure training facilities for endurance cyclists staying in the Olympic Village.
Clearly, the congested environs in that part of London – Stratford – are unsuited for road training.
But Hog Hill is not necessarily suitable to the needs of the riders preparing for the road and time trial events. Hog Hill is a short road circuit of about two or three kilometres, ok for a couple of hours of riding at most. Certainly, the time triallists won’t want to ride up the dirty great hill each lap, the main feature of this attractive and well-used circuit.
LOCOG understand this, it seems, and are also believed to be looking for a suitable 30-kilometre loop on roads around Hog Hill.
The British team, for instance, will not be based in the Olympic Village, but in a Surrey hotel close to the time trial and road race courses.
The Australian team have also indicated they too will be staying in Surrey.
LOCOG want use of Hog Hill from July through to September 2012. But allowing for “build-up and take down” time – to erect security fencing and other additional facilities within the circuit ­­- it effectively means LOCOG will have use of the site from June to October.


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