Festivals of Private Britain: Finsbury Park, the Olympics Legacy

The Festival of Britain in 1951 left the Royal Festival Hall, referred to as one of the finest
public buildings in the country.' Photograph: M. Fresco

Despite a public bailout, London 2012 will not be leaving behind the type of public-spirited legacy equated with the Great Exhibition of 1851 or the 1951 Festival of Britain.

A £1bn bid by the Wellcome Trust to buy the Olympic Park and village and create a "Silicon Valley for Europe" – in conjunction with two universities, and providing a museum, social housing and 7,000 jobs – was turned down by the Olympic Park Legacy Company. One reason was that it didn't offer "value for money" to the taxpayer. The village has now been sold to a consortium led by Qatar's royal family. As Ground Control author Anna Minton puts it:

The true legacy of the Olympics is this litany of collapsed deals and broken promises by a confusing array of quangos and companies. The public-spirited legacy promised could have gone ahead only if the concept of the "public good" retained some meaning in today's political discourse.

Instead the term was quietly removed from legislation in 2004, reflecting the extent to which the market has squeezed the notion of the public good out of politics. If landmark events reflect the state of our society and democracy, then the Olympics never stood a chance of fulfilling a public-spirited legacy in tune with 1851 or 1951.

 

In the wider context of the conversation around the privatisation of public space about which I've written before, and with this very topical warning ringing in my ears, I think too about the future of our own much more humble local sports facility in Finsbury Park. 

The current proposals for the Finsbury Park Athletics Track will see our hitherto public sports space in effect privatised. Is this just an inevitable consequence of the parlous state of the public purse or is it something we should be resisting?

As Rob reminded us yesterday, should you have a view on the park's future, you have until tomorrow to represent your views to the Council. (Judging by the airtime this issue has had on HoL vs the volume of noise about the previous 5-a-side plans for the park, people are comfortable with the proposed changes. Or, are we just experiencing resistance fatigue?).