Anger Over Olympic Plan To Build On Sports Field

Lib Dem councillors are angry about Labour-controlled Waltham Forest’s overly generous offer for the Olympic Delivery Authority to take control of Drapers Field during the Games and use it as a holding pen for athletes’ equipment, or possibly (according to one local report), a VIP car park. Councillor Bob Sullivan says that 9,000 people use the facilities, comprising training pitches and an arts centre, each month, and that concreting it over would contradict “the Olympic ethos [which] is about encouraging people to take up sport and leisure”. Green space beyond the Olympic park is under threat in the run-up to 2012: the East Marsh at Hackney Marshes will be converted into a disabled car park, though it will be re-planted and returned to public use afterwards.

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