After a period of quiet, you can’t keep the Olympic Stadium bid out of the news at the moment. At the weekend, West Ham’s Karren Brady implied that the Beckham loan attempt was just a stunt on Spurs’ behalf to secure the site and this was quickly followed by Tottenham MP David Lammy’s condemnation of the club’s plans.
Now the club has revealed their intentions to demolish the existing structure and replace it with a new 60,000 all seat venue.
The most controversial part of the proposal seems to centre on the club’s confirmation that there will be no place for a running track at the new ground and therefore athletics will not be taking place there. Whilst common in other parts of Europe for years, running tracks have always been hated in England with the view that spectators are just too far from play.
It seems the club share this opinion and they have offered to help re-develop the National Stadium at Crystal Palace instead, but chairman of UK Athletics Ed Warner has slammed the proposals as ‘insulting.’
Warner is known to support West Ham’s intentions to provide a multi-purpose facility and the Daily Telegraph’s website quotes Warner as saying: “I think what they (Spurs) have come up with looks incredibly thin. They’ve come up with the bare minimum that they hope will pass muster with the legacy company when the decision is made, but it’s nothing like the sort of legacy that was envisaged in 2005 in the London bid.”
The London bid team promised the IOC an Athletics legacy that would live on long after the games had finished. Maybe Spurs’ proposals will conflict with that legacy enough to see their bid fail.
Thank you Ed Warner, but what sort of legacy was envisaged? It seems very much like the project was drawn up and the building work commenced with no real thoughts given to use after the games, and how it was going to be paid for, seemingly on the basis that someone will probably want it.
When, other than the olympics will athletics fill a 60,000 seat stadium? Never. It isn’t needed. Can the sport that wants, but doesn’t need it afford to pay for it?…. no.
As for Devid Lammy. Well perhaps if he started lobbying in a helpful way, for instance seeking upgrades to White Hart Lane and Northumberland Park Station, the installation of a tube Station at Northumberland Park and putting in place regeneration plans to complement the Northumberland Development Project, instead of trying to make an enemy of the club, then he might retain some credibility.
the olympic cttee planned to have the stadium dismantled, it was deigned to make that possible, and for there to be a 25,000 seater athletic track. Someone has decided there is an opportunity for more money if a football team is brought in; perhaps that is the only way to create a legacy of any significance. Once that happens then there is a challenge to make the two work. I loved the atmosphere of the old wembley, but i would have hated to see a game there each week. it was almost impossible to tell if a goal had been scored or not when standing behind the other goal. And the distance between the back of the new stands in the west ham plans and the edge of the field will be significantly greater than it was at wembley. What is disappointing is the self-serving nonsense that is being told. the stadium was designed to be changed. West Ham are also going to do major restructuring, the vast majority of spurs fans might not want to go, but equally they might not care, we do not know becasue the vast majority have not spoken. The fact that 2,000 have signed a petition does not mean that the vast majority do not want it, sqeaky wheels etc. No one has heard from the vast majority. nor do we know what those 2,000 would choose if the choise is move or keep what we have where we are and dont build as it is too expensive and not viable, my strong sense and i do not want to risk the bankruptcy of the club, I would rather be in E15 than have that happen. I commend the article in this morning’s FT, about the only balanced account I have seen. That comment is not intended to reflect in a negative way on the various rags in haringey but also the attention grabbing and misleading headline of the Guardian’s web-site “Spurs plan to destroy the Olympic stadium”. so do west ham, and is was designed to be “destroyed”. The real problem lies with the sheer arrogance of haringey and it various politicians who have taken the continued presence of spurs for granted. the trough might disappear so time to remove the snouts