Agenda item

To debate key issues affecting the Borough.  The issue to be discussed at this meeting is the forthcoming London Olympic games.  A representative of the city operations section at the GLA and a representative of LOCOG (The London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games) will be present.

The Mayor welcomed Neale Coleman, the Mayor of London's Olympic advisor and Richard Sumray, chair of the London 2012 Forum at LOCOG (The London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games).

Neale Coleman expressed his gratitude for being given the opportunity to address the meeting and referred to his association with the borough dating back to the time of the construction of Wembley Stadium and the visit by the International Olympic Committee's evaluation panel, which had turned out to be very successful.  The collaboration between the Mayor's office and the Council had continued to be strong and he referred to the borough's Chief Executive being a member of the steering group looking at the Olympic operation right across London.  Mr Coleman explained that the GLA had given consideration to the extra costs associated with hosting the Games and the Council had been awarded £700,000 which was in the process of being paid over.  He reminded members that it was not just the stadium that would be used during the Olympics but also Wembley Arena and so there would be a large number of visitors to the borough which would make it a very exciting place to be.  Mr Coleman stated that there were discussions taking place between the Mayor's office and the IOC to ensure that London would present itself as an Olympic city and in turn there was close liaison with the boroughs over this.  The GLA would be allocating an additional sum of £50,000 to every London borough to support activities designed to achieve this.  Details on this would emerge soon.  A volunteer programme was being run by the GLA to recruit ambassadors who would be present at all the Olympic venues to welcome and assist the people visiting the games and many people from Brent had put themselves forward for this role.  Neale Coleman reported that the Mayor had recently announced a scheme to provide free tickets for schools in London with the only requirement being for schools to ensure they registered with the LOCOG Get Set network.  He was aware that there were still a large number of schools in Brent who had yet to do this.  It was pointed out that being registered with Get Set was not the same thing as being a member of the Get Set network and that registered schools and colleges had to ensure they joined the network.

Richard Sumray stated that this was his third visit to the borough in recent months which was symptomatic of Brent's involvement in the Olympics.  He re-iterated the importance of schools registering with the Get Set network by saying that of 107 schools in the borough, 71 had registered with Get Set but only 29 had joined the network.  There continued to be significant progress made on preparing the venues which was ahead of schedule and within budget.  Test events were already underway at some venues and there would be a badminton tournament held at Wembley Arena shortly.  The number of tickets available for the events taking place in Brent would not be far short of one million.  Consultations were taking place on the need to close Engineers Way during the Olympics in order to allow for temporary changes to be made for Wembley Arena.  Mr Sumray reported that the torch relay was due to arrive in Brent on 18 May 2012 and if the experience of Sydney was anything to go by, this would galvanise interest in the Olympics.  He was sure there would be people from Brent who had been nominated as deserving of being one of the 8,000 being sought to carry the torch.  A cultural festival would open prior to the Olympics and run through to the end of the Paralympic Games.  Interviews were taking place to appoint volunteers to help with the running of the Games and it would be a challenge for the boroughs to harness this spirit of volunteering as a legacy of the Games.  Brent had eight projects included in the Inspire programme which was designed to deliver projects and events genuinely inspired by the London 2012 Games.  Mr Sumray felt that with one year to go, people around the UK were enthusiastic about the Games coming to London.  The sale of tickets had given opportunities to a lot of people to purchase them and there were still around one million to sell.  He had been to the last five Olympics and seen how it brought the host cities to life.  The year 2012 would be a unique year in the life of Londoners and he suggested that as representatives of the people of Brent, members were in a position to ensure the year was special and had a lasting impact for the benefit of generations to come. 

Councillor John thanked the speakers for their contributions.  She wanted it to be known that Brent was proud to be an Olympic borough hosting football, badminton and gymnastics.  She was glad that past support for the Olympics had been cross party.  Councillor John added that the borough was also proud to be able to contribute to the cultural aspect of the Olympics.  Her personal experience of attending an Olympic Games had given her an insight to the effect it had on a city and she felt Brent was ready and willing to play its part.

The Mayor opened the issue up for discussion.  There was endorsement of the sentiment that Brent was proud to be a host borough and congratulations were passed on to all those involved in the hard work so far undertaken into making the arrangements.  The hope was expressed that there would be a fair allocation of tickets for schools.  A primary concern expressed was the effect the games would have on transport in the borough, especially the impact on the North Circular Road.  Another concern was for those residents that would be affected by parking restrictions and road closures.  It was pointed out that the residents of Wembley were already inconvenienced by parking restrictions on event days and the hope expressed that any restrictions imposed by the Games would be for the minimum duration possible. 

Neale Coleman responded by explaining that a lot of work had already gone into formulating an overall transport plan for the Games.  The ambition was for all spectators for all events to use public transport in getting to them.  It was of paramount importance to ensure that the athletes and officials would be able to travel around London efficiently.  There were no proposals to create a priority lane along the North Circular Road.  It was the intention to impose parking restrictions around venues only during the time events were taking place.  It was re-iterated that the only criteria for the allocation of tickets to schools was for them to be registered with the Get Set programme.  Richard Sumray added that the closure of Engineers Way required some overlay and so would have to be closed for a longer period than the time the Games took place.  His experience from the Sydney Games was that it changed people's travelling habits towards greater use of public transport and lessons for London needed to be learnt from this.

Further views expressed were that it was felt to be wrong to propose banning London taxis and cyclists from the priority road lanes created to each of the venues.  The question was asked if the appropriate agencies would get additional funding to meet the increased public safety needs so that their normal duties could be carried out as well as covering the Olympics.  A message of support was provided from the Lead Member for Highways and Transportation that the Council would do whatever it could to facilitate the Games taking place, using the considerable experience it had of catering for the events that took place at Wembley Stadium. Further clarification was sought over plans for the North Circular Road because some residents had received letters about it. 

In response, Neale Colman re-iterated that there were no plans for a priority lane on the North Circular Road but that there might be some other changes made to the road such as different signalling or turning arrangements.  All residents affected had been written to and all the changes were detailed on the Transport for London (TfL) web site.  A lot of representations had been received from the taxi trade concerning use of the priority lanes and these were under consideration by the Mayor.  However the point was made that the main way in which traffic would be moved through the London road network would be by signalling and so the impact on taxis might not be as great as feared.  There was a determination to keep the period during which priority lanes were enforced to a minimum and their operation would always be with a view to ensuring athletes and officials were able to get to their events.   Richard Sumray explained that a huge amount of effort by the emergency services was going into ensuring public safety.  Evidence showed that during the Olympics crime levels fell in the hosting city but that the level of domestic violence increased.  A significant number of extra police would be drafted in from other parts of the country and trained in their duties around countering the terrorism threat that would inevitably exist.

Final comments put forward were that whilst the Olympics offered an opportunity to encourage people to use public transport, the level of London fares would not and it was suggested that action needed to be taken to make public transport more affordable for all.  In mentioning crime, the significant issue of prostitution and trafficking was raised on which the Council had carried out a detailed study, the findings of which could be useful in the planning for the Games.

In his final comments, Neale Coleman stated that the issue of trafficking was a problem that was being looked at closely by the police.  He stated that a substantial amount of work had gone into preparing a transport plan for the Games and pointed out that every ticket for an event included with it a free travel card for zones 1-6. 

The Mayor thanked Neale Coleman and Richard Sumray for their attendance.