Legacy of the 2012 Summer Olympics

Updated on Dec 27, 2023

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The London 2012 Olympic Legacy is the longer-term benefits and effects of the planning, funding, building and staging of the Olympic and Paralympic Games in summer 2012. It is variously described as:

economic – supporting new jobs and skills, encouraging trade, inward investment and tourism

sporting – continuing elite success, development of more sports facilities and encouraging participation in schools sports and wider

social and volunteering – inspiring others to volunteer and encouraging social change

regeneration – reuse of venues, new homes, improved transportation, in East London and at other sites across the UK.

The 2012 legacy is coordinated by the UK Government who appointed Lord Sebastian Coe as the London 2012 legacy ambassador in August 2012.

Recent examples of the 2012 legacy benefits and results include:

learning – shared knowledge and lessons learned from the construction of the Olympic Park and preparing and staging the Games

economic – 2012 apprenticeships in broadcasting companies including the BBC and ITV

sporting – reports that school sports participation has not been boosted and may not be being taken seriously

regeneration – the re-opening of the Olympic Park as the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in July 2013

tourism – the Games’ long term benefits on London’s and Britain’s tourism industry

Bid Pledges

The London bid for the 2012 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games included bid chairman Lord Coe placing a pledge to use the events to inspire two million people to take up sport and physical activity at the heart of the bid. Legacy includes sporting, economic, cultural, and environmental benefits, and aims to ensure that no "white elephants" were created by the 2012 Summer Olympics and 2012 Summer Paralympics. The London Legacy Development Corporation is a mayoral development corporation responsible for the Olympic Park area.

Construction Phase – The Big Build

The Olympic Delivery Authority stated that legacy use and community regeneration were "locked-in" to the planning and designing of Olympic and Paralympic venues and infrastructure, and cited the Olympic Park Aquatics Centre and Olympic and Paralympic sailing facilities in Weymouth as examples showing "a clear focus on sporting, economic, social, and environmental legacy".

Legacy plans

Since the London 2012 Paralympic Games finished on 9 September 2012 the UK Government has unveiled an updated Legacy Plan. Its main points include:

funding for elite sport until Rio 2016

investment to turn the Olympic site into the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park

20 major sporting events to UK by 2019, with more bids in progress

£1bn investment over the next five years in the Youth Sport Strategy, linking schools with sports clubs and encouraging sporting habits for life

introduction of the School Games programme to boost schools sport and county sport festivals

continued funding for International Inspiration, the UK's international sports development programme, to 2014.

There have been several previous legacy plans. These include:

Legacy Plan 2010

In December 2010, the Government published a new Legacy plan, which set out the legacy vision for the 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, and the detailed plans underpinning it. It identified four areas to focus on: harnessing the UK’s passion for sport to increase grassroots participation, particularly by young people, and to encourage the whole population to be more physically active; exploiting to the full the opportunities for economic growth offered by hosting the Games; promoting community engagement and achieving participation across all groups in society through the Games; and ensuring that the Olympic Park can be developed after the Games as one of the principal drivers of regeneration in East London.

Six borough plans 2009

The six London boroughs hosting the Games – Barking and Dagenham, Greenwich, Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest – published plans for legacy in 2009. This was outlined in the Strategic Regeneration Framework which included the objective that by 2030, the communities hosting the Games would have the same social and economic life chances as at least the London average. This is the principle of Convergence and guides its joint working on legacy.

Legacy Action Plan 2008

A Legacy Action Plan to implement legacy promises was published on 6 June 2008. With comments that the legacy has been published several years earlier than previous Olympics and critics claiming the plan lacks the detail needed to implement an effective legacy. The GLA published a legacy commitments document in 2007.

Legacy Plan 2007

The government published its legacy plans via the Department for Culture, Media and Sport's Legacy Promises document, published in 2007. The five promises were:

Make the UK a world-leading sporting nation

Transform the heart of the East End of London

Inspire a generation of young people to take part in local volunteering, cultural, and physical activity

Make the Olympic Park a blueprint for sustainable living

Demonstrate the UK is a creative, inclusive, and welcoming place to live in, visit, and for business

Strategic Regeneration Framework

The Strategic Regeneration Framework brings together evidence that shows the six Hosts Boroughs constitute a significant area of deprivation, among the worst in England, and demonstrates a persistent gap in social outcomes such as health, life expectancy, educational achievement, housing and crime compared to the London average. It proposes action on a number of key indicators which is required to turn around more than a century of deprivation. The Olympics is a vital catalyst but is not sufficient in isolation to achieve widespread socio-economic regeneration.

The Strategic Regeneration Framework and Convergence make real the promise in the original bid document that “By staging the Games in this part of the city, the most enduring legacy of the Olympics will be the regeneration of an entire community for the direct benefit of everyone who lives there”. The principle of Convergence is included in the Mayor of London’s spatial development strategy, known as The London Plan 2011.

Proven legacy

The Japanese style 'Olympic Javelin' bullet trains used to ferry spectators at London 2012 began to run on 28 July 2012 and were still running in December 2015, but at a lower rate to the Olympic times. Some station upgrades also occurred.

Chigwell Popchoir performed at the Olympic Park in 2014.

Sport relief occurred at the Olympic Park in 2013, 2014, 2015 and in 2016.

When concert promoters Live Nation won the right to stage shows at the stadium and in the surrounding park during January, 2013, but only the park was used. The site of the former Riverbank Arena slated to be the stage for Hard Rock Calling, Wireless and Electric Daisy Carnival festivals in 2013.

The Lee Valley Hockey Centre was borne from a revamp of the Olympic Legacy Hockey Facility and is the home ground of Wapping Hockey Club.

Legacy bodies

The London Legacy Development Corporation is responsible for planning for, and delivering, the future development of the Olympic Park. It replaced the Olympic Park Legacy Company which had been set up in 2009.

Criticisms and concerns

Criticism of the London 2012 legacy includes the legacy not meeting its original ambitions with a decrease in 2014/15 in the number of people playing sport for at least half an hour a week of 125,100.

References

Legacy of the 2012 Summer Olympics Wikipedia

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