Olympics minister orders rethink over 2012 plans for Greenwich park

Andrew Gilligan
28 Aug 2008

Greenwich Park — and several other controversial Olympic venues — could be scrapped from the London Games amid rising concern about their cost, local impact and minimal post-Olympic legacy, the Standard can reveal.

London 2012 chiefs have hired the accountancy firm KPMG to carry out a top-level review of three venues — Greenwich Park, which is planned to accommodate the equestrian competition, the proposed shooting venue at the Royal Artillery Barracks, Woolwich, and the basketball venue on the main Olympic site itself.

The Olympics minister, Tessa Jowell, told the Standard: “We have commissioned KPMG to do a report on the equestrian, shooting and basketball venues, looking at whether the Olympic experience and the legacy they will provide represents value for money.

“When you take the costs for these venues, it seems like a lot of money to a lot of people. It is a sort of testing-to-destruction to see whether that spending can be justified.”

Ms Jowell said it was “possible but unlikely” that the venues could be discarded as a result. But high-level sources at City Hall and the London Development Agency told the Standard that they saw a “higher chance” than Ms Jowell of some or all of the venues being replaced.

“The Standard's campaign [against the use of Greenwich Park] has been having an impact,” said one senior LDA official.

Greenwich Park and the historic Woolwich barracks, on Woolwich Common, were chosen as telegenic backdrops to bring two often-neglected Olympic disciplines, equestrianism and shooting, closer to the centre of attention. But both have proved bitterly controversial amid allegations that they were chosen without serious ­consideration of their suitability for the events they are meant to host.

Greenwich, first enclosed in 1433, is London's oldest Royal Park, Grade I listed, and is one of only a tiny handful of urban parks in the world which is also a Unesco World Heritage site. It is filled with historic buildings, ancient Roman remains and old trees — some dating back to the reign of Charles II — and is a major tourist attraction.

Olympics chiefs want to install a four-mile cross-country jumping course, a 23,000-seat showjumping arena, ­stabling and dozens of ancillary buildings in the park. The cost will run into tens of ­millions. Provisional plans for the course seen by the Standard show it making at least five crossings of ­avenues lined by ancient trees and ­cutting through the centre of the park's much-loved flower garden.

Olympic organisers insist that no trees will be cut down but admit some will be pruned. They have also said that between a quarter and a third of the park will be closed for a total of 10 months in 2011 and 2012 to prepare for the events. Smaller areas will be closed in a programme beginning as early as 2010.

Local campaigners — and some authoritative figures from the horse world itself — say the park, at just 185 acres, is too small to host the events and may suffer permanent damage. A ­survey by the Standard of this year's Olympic equestrian cross-country course, in Hong Kong, found that the organisers had erected a total of 311 temporary structures.

Tim Hadaway, who will run the ­London 2012 equestrian competition, admitted that most of the structures arose from IOC requirements and said that he “could not judge yet” how those requirements could be met in Greenwich Park.

“We mustn't presume too much at this stage but this review is very encouraging news,” said Michael Goldman, director of No to Greenwich Olympic Equestrian Events, a local pressure group formed to oppose the use of the park. “If even the Olympic organisers have doubts about the venues, it greatly adds to the strength of our case.” ­

However, cost and legacy, rather than local concerns, are understood to be the main focus behind the commissioning of the study. “All these venues will cost a lot of money but the legacy is minimal to nil,” said one senior City Hall figure. All the facilities at Greenwich, the Dome and Woolwich will be temporary and nothing will remain on site after 2012.

At Greenwich, despite claims by LOCOG chairman Lord Coe that the inner-city site will encourage South Londoners to get involved in equestrianism, it has emerged that the park will not even be big enough to allow most of the sport's existing ­followers to attend.

Britain's major international equestrian meetings, such as Badminton, attract crowds of up to 90,000 a day, more than three times as many as can fit into Greenwich Park. “My concern is that far from helping equestrianism, it will end up embarrassing it,” said Pippa Cuckson, former deputy editor of Horse and Hound magazine.

This year's Olympic equestrian ­venues at Hong Kong cost £52 million to build, according to the Hong Kong Jockey Club, which paid for them. Staging costs for the competition are estimated at a further £15 million to £20 million. The equestrian events at Athens cost £200 million, according to Spyros Capralos, technical director of Athens 2004. At the 2000 Games, ­Sydney's equestrian events cost ­£40 million.

Alternative sites for the equestrian events include Windsor Great Park, which would also fulfil the requirement of being “iconic”, Hickstead or Badminton. It is also possible that the showjumping and dressage events could remain at Greenwich while the cross-country course is moved, though that would not overcome many of the most serious objections.

At Woolwich, even the governing body of the sport concerned, British Shooting, opposes the venue, saying it will cost up to £25 million but leave nothing for shooters. A petition on the Downing Street website to change the venue, backed by British Shooting and started by a Great Britain shooting team member, Nicola Heron, now has almost 11,000 signatures.

“If you're going to spend £25 million, then for goodness's sake do something useful with it,” British Shooting's chair, Phil Boakes, said. “Whatever money is spent [at Woolwich] is a waste of time and will leave no legacy.” British Shooting would prefer a site at Dartford where a permanent international-standard shooting centre, something Britain lacks, could be built.

The Woolwich venue will also require the closure of the busy South Circular Road for hours at a time, causing traffic chaos. The road runs next to the shooting ground with a risk that a pedestrian or motorist could be accidentally shot. Much of Woolwich Common will also be closed and emergency access to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital will be more difficult.

The 2012 basketball competition will take place on two sites — the heats in a temporary 12,000-seat arena in the main Olympic Park, and the finals at the ­Millennium Dome. Only the temporary arena will be examined by the KPMG study. “It is again going to be expensive to erect and dismantle an arena for two weeks and there is no legacy at all,” said one figure familiar with the study.

The KPMG review is expected to last several months. “It is not a final verdict but is aimed at giving us a fuller picture to inform our decision-making,” said one City Hall source. “We do not have complete information on the costs and benefits of these venues. Any change [to a venue] would require quite a lot of internal debate but we want to proceed by agreement and by discussion.”

Any decision would have to be ratified by the sport's international governing bodies before being formally approved by the IOC at its congress in Copenhagen next year.

Positive dope tests fuel controversy over equestrianism's Olympic future

Greenwich Park was chosen as an Olympic venue partly to increase the profile of equestrianism. But this year, after another embarrassing Games for the sport, it is in danger of being thrown out of the Olympics altogether.

At one stage last week, more Olympic horses had failed drug tests than Olympic athletes. The Norwegian team is expected to lose its bronze medal as a result. At the Athens Olympics, both the team and individual golds were taken away for doping.

The final tally of positive dope tests among the human athletes is six, out of 4,770 conducted. In equestrianism, four horses failed, out of just 35 tested. The culprit in each case was capsaicin, a derivative of chilli peppers which can be spread on a horse's legs to hypersensitise the animal and make him jump more cleanly.

One of the guilty riders, Ireland's Denis Lynch, protested that he had merely used an equine equivalent of the Deep Heat pain-relieving rub, containing a small amount of capsaicin, on his horse's backside.

But the damage was done. Sven Holmberg, head of jumping for the International Equestrian Federation (FEI), described it as a “serious blow” to the entire sport. “We are well aware of the possible implications for its position in the Olympics,” he said.

Many in the IOC have always wanted to remove equestrianism from the Games line-up, believing it insufficiently “universal” to be an Olympic discipline. This is an expensive sport, both to stage and to compete in, with top horses selling for millions. The stereotype of the well-heeled upper-middle-class rider is only partly true — several of Britain's equestrian stars are from quite modest backgrounds — but only around 20 countries, mostly rich Western ones, take part at Olympic level. 

Even if equestrianism is expelled, it is highly unlikely to happen before the 2012 Games.
The effect of all the difficulties in Hong Kong may be to make the British equestrian authorities all the keener on a supposedly attention-grabbing “iconic” venue in London. But if they go ahead with Greenwich, and it goes wrong, that could seal equestrianism's fate as an Olympic sport.