Visitors from Vancouver will join local people to carry the Poverty Olympics Torch in Glasgow's East End today, protesting at scandalous profiteering and evictions, as the city council implements its corporate vision for the Commonwealth Games in 2014.
The Poverty Olympics were launched in Canada's seventh largest city when the Winter Olympics of 2010, staged with the usual promises of regeneration and positive legacy, went down the same path. There is particular local anger that promises to build housing for the homeless never materialised.
As London braces itself for the Olympic onslaught, the same scenario is playing out there. The benefits will be entirely for the corporations while the £24bn cost will be paid by the public and in particular Londoners. As to the much-vaunted “legacy” cliaims, a report from global real estate firm CBRE states: "The ... greatest legacy will be the land that was assembled to host the Games thereby changing the landscape of East London.”
The report cites 4 million square feet of commercial space at Stratford, in addition to the massive Westfield Centre, private housing for sale by Inter IKEA on a site next the Olympic Park and the sale of the Olympic Athletes Village to a Qatari developer.
Meanwhile, tenants in London are being priced out of their homes. Landlords are using six-month shorthold tenancies to get tenants out in time for the Olympics, or even telling them they can stay, but vacate for the Olympic period. Monthly rent on a two-bedroom flat in Tower Hamlets or Hackney would normally be about £1,400; now they are being advertised as high as £7,500 a week to attract wealthy tourists coming to London for the Olympics.
In Glasgow, families, small businesses and the Accord Centre for people with learning disabilities, have been displaced to make way for the Commonwealth Games. The treatment of the poor and the rich by the council could not be more different.
Wealthy Mayfair property developer Charles Price bought a parcel of land in Dalmarnock that was already earmarked for the Games for £8 million sometime between 2002 and 2005. The council could have put a compulsory purchase order on it. Instead they paid £17 million; with £3m VAT that's £20 million pounds of public money.
Readers of this blog will know about Margaret Jaconelli and her family, who held out for months refusing to leave her flat because the council offered her a paltry £30,000, not enough to buy a flat anywhere in the city. In the end she was carried out by force, and she has still not received any compensation.
Plans for the area after the Games include a 160-bedroom hotel, a supermarket, various food outlets (you can guess which ones) and executive apartments priced will be well beyond the pockets of hard-pressed East Enders.
Modern Olympics and Games are in reality state-financed and public-subsidised land grabs, and regeneration is a myth. Any developments that are of benefit to the public –schools, hospitals - remain locked into the public/private partnership model, where the profit is privatised and the risk socialised.
The local authority - whether in Vancouver, London or Glasgow, buys land at inflated prices from developers, and uses compulsory purchase powers to evict householders, allotment holders or small business people who can't afford lawyers.
The money is all up front from the people's purse, but the benefits are nebulous and mainly unrealised. They pay to recapitalise derelict land and build new infrastructure, then the corporations move in.
The Olympic and Commonwealth Games have moved far away from sporting territory. It's time to boycott them entirely and focus instead on taking back control of our communities, and our sports facilities, making sure the majority benefit and not the wealthy few.
Penny Cole
Environment editor
For revolutionary solutions to create a sustainable, not-for-profit economy in place of global capital alongside a real democracy based on People’s Assemblies. Visit our web site at www.aworldtowin.net
Showing posts with label Glasgow City Council. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Glasgow City Council. Show all posts
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Thursday, February 23, 2012
'Booted by the suited' for opposing Glasgow centre closure
Grace Harrington was sitting quietly in the public gallery of Glasgow City Chambers listening to Labour councillors agreeing a further £43m of budget cuts. Out of the blue, she was grabbed by staff and "huckled", as the expression goes, out of the building.
When she asked why she was being subjected to this treatment, she was informed she was “not a model citizen” and further that she was banned from the City Chambers for life.
Grace is the mother of a man with learning disabilities; for many years her son has met daily with friends at the Accord Day Centre in Glasgow's East End. The centre is being demolished to make way for a bus park for the 2014 Commonwealth Games.
At first parents and members of the service were told they would get a 'like-for-like' replacement, maybe a custom-built building within the new Tolcross Aquatic Centre. They were encouraged to put down their ideas for what the new centre would be like. Everyone was excited about the future.
But this proved a cruel joke. Last year they were informed there would be no replacement; the best they could hope for would be a room in local community centre, and so their struggle began.
It has been long and bitter, with the council behaving like arrogant bullies throughout. First they said there was no money; then they denied they had made any commitment. In a final insult they claimed it is all for the good of the members: day services are old-fashioned and the Accord Centre would have been on a closure list anyway.
According to current social work “newthink”, everyone must be “independent” and have a “personal budget” that they spend on everyday activities like “normal” people. The fact that the budgets don't cover the real cost of what people want or the support they need is irrelevant.
The fact that what the members of the Accord want is the centre they were promised, is ignored. Choice only counts if you choose the “option” they tell you to.
The replacement is an inconveniently shaped room in a community centre that is facing closure. The Banbury Community Centre, built in a tough old area, is not seen as safe by local people. It seems likely the council only invested in space for the evicted Accord Centre members to encourage the Glasgow Housing Association (formerly the council's housing department) to keep it open.
The members of Save the Accord Campaign have fought tenaciously, and with their excellent slogan "Booted by the Suited", have marched and spoken at meetings and challenged every lie and distortion.
Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond told them that he would step in to help, but nothing came of his promise except a few headlines for him.
The Accord Centre has been demolished around the members, stripped of all its equipment and the fence between it and the road torn down. Some parents have been told that it will close finally tomorrow; no letter has been sent out but it seems council officials are phoning parents individually.
Whilst no money could be found to replace the Accord, Glasgow City Council has spent millions on dodgy land deals in the East End.
The impact of big sporting events on communities is never the wonderful regeneration that politicians claim. It just makes money for developers, and increases land values, shutting out any future social or community benefit.
The experience of the Accord Centre is a powerful argument to put an end to communities being “booted by the suited” for good, by transferring land ownership, planning and decision-making to democratic People's Assemblies.
Penny Cole
When she asked why she was being subjected to this treatment, she was informed she was “not a model citizen” and further that she was banned from the City Chambers for life.
Grace is the mother of a man with learning disabilities; for many years her son has met daily with friends at the Accord Day Centre in Glasgow's East End. The centre is being demolished to make way for a bus park for the 2014 Commonwealth Games.
At first parents and members of the service were told they would get a 'like-for-like' replacement, maybe a custom-built building within the new Tolcross Aquatic Centre. They were encouraged to put down their ideas for what the new centre would be like. Everyone was excited about the future.
But this proved a cruel joke. Last year they were informed there would be no replacement; the best they could hope for would be a room in local community centre, and so their struggle began.
It has been long and bitter, with the council behaving like arrogant bullies throughout. First they said there was no money; then they denied they had made any commitment. In a final insult they claimed it is all for the good of the members: day services are old-fashioned and the Accord Centre would have been on a closure list anyway.
According to current social work “newthink”, everyone must be “independent” and have a “personal budget” that they spend on everyday activities like “normal” people. The fact that the budgets don't cover the real cost of what people want or the support they need is irrelevant.
The fact that what the members of the Accord want is the centre they were promised, is ignored. Choice only counts if you choose the “option” they tell you to.
The replacement is an inconveniently shaped room in a community centre that is facing closure. The Banbury Community Centre, built in a tough old area, is not seen as safe by local people. It seems likely the council only invested in space for the evicted Accord Centre members to encourage the Glasgow Housing Association (formerly the council's housing department) to keep it open.
The members of Save the Accord Campaign have fought tenaciously, and with their excellent slogan "Booted by the Suited", have marched and spoken at meetings and challenged every lie and distortion.
Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond told them that he would step in to help, but nothing came of his promise except a few headlines for him.
The Accord Centre has been demolished around the members, stripped of all its equipment and the fence between it and the road torn down. Some parents have been told that it will close finally tomorrow; no letter has been sent out but it seems council officials are phoning parents individually.
Whilst no money could be found to replace the Accord, Glasgow City Council has spent millions on dodgy land deals in the East End.
The impact of big sporting events on communities is never the wonderful regeneration that politicians claim. It just makes money for developers, and increases land values, shutting out any future social or community benefit.
The experience of the Accord Centre is a powerful argument to put an end to communities being “booted by the suited” for good, by transferring land ownership, planning and decision-making to democratic People's Assemblies.
Penny Cole
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)