Gestor Procesal de UPAD

Previously highlighted in Chapter Six was the role that youth were to play in the effect, impact and legacy of the London 2012 Olympic Games. As such it is

imperative to explore how they were viewed and treated in the run up to the Games around the planning for the regeneration of their area. The treatment of the youth voice as ‘confirmers’ rather than ‘activators’ has been established previously in Chapter 6. Through the questioning routes to stakeholders, it became increasingly apparent that this was not isolated, anecdotal incident of misrepresenting the youth voice. Pre-ordained decision making and ad-hoc feedback seeking confirmation reflect the nature of event planning. Hearing local voices, particularly youth voices, during the planning process for mega events has been relatively neglected. The formalisation of committees to ensure local voice is heard is portrayed as vital by organising committees and multi-national corporations.Yet, the ability for these to be appropriated is clear. Contributors to this study shared contrasting views about the role these boards had. The lack of transparency with youth volunteers feeling they were “hidden away” (Interview 3, Former LOCOG Youth Panel Member) was clearly a source of frustration for volunteers. This suggests that the role of such groups is muted. Conversely, this also suggests that the dynamic hybrids in this aspect of the study possibly took on a more subserviant but confirmatory role, supporting more established and influential voices. This suggestion is supported by the finding that interviewees often noted that they did not feel they were a voice to advocate for change but rather to confirm preordained ideas.

“I think we were often used as a sounding board for ideas, which was helpful and which was good but the extent to which we actually got to express our own views about whatever to do with Olympics, we were somewhat muted”

This finding adds weight to earlier reported trends within mega event legacy planning whereby key potentially supporting voices are quashed in support of pre-existing established practices (Watts, 2013).

This is contrasted in the views of a local school community officer who felt that the voice in the Park Boroughs was well-received and seemingly still playing an

important role in the regeneration of the area. They suggested that there:

“was a lot of consultation with young people, there was a youth panel set up which was a whole bunch of schools which is still active to this day, from the local area all nominated somebody to be on that” (Interview 2, Local School Community Officer) This suggests that active participation of local communities and young people

continues to be seen as important, during the post-Games period of the Park at least to some extent. Yet, the distinct lack of mention of these groups by other face-to-face interviewees or school survey respondents provides evidence for the disengagement of such focused entities at a corporate level.

One consistent finding across the three interviewees who discussed their contribution to committees to reflect youth voice, either before or following the Games, related to the role they felt they had played to ensure accommodation was at the forefront of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park development. This is

highlighted through the former LOCOG Youth Panel member noting how the committee discussion focused on the legacy for youth concerning future housing projects which would be:

“physically open for young people, it would help regenerate the area. We were under the impression that the accommodation blocks would be converted… that would be designated to young people in the area so they didn’t have to move out of the boroughs” (Interview 3, Former LOCOG Youth Panel member)

“we’d had erm a consultation period ourselves and we had come up with the one thing that we thought would have the most impact on our students’ achievement and that was better housing. That was the feeling that post Games that would be the big thing that they could get out of it. (Interview 1, Religious Leader)

The East London desire for spatial proximity is historically relevant and documented (Young and Wilmott, 1967). So, whilst housing is clearly of benefit to the local

community of youth with fears over future residency in the area, this thesis does not consider extensively the role of housing in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in detail as this has been laregely covered elsewhere (Cohen, 2012; Bernstock, 2014). The key finding so far is that whilst clearly those interviewed were involved in the committee structures and youth engagement in the local area, the appropriate voice and representation was doubted by them within these structures as suggested by the former LOCOG Youth Panel Member:

“…they give them pretend power. So you know, she says I meet Claire from Get Living London once a month and we discuss things. Yeahhh, what they giving you? Nothing” (Interview 2, Local School Community Officer)

This doubt extended not only to the representation of the youth of the Park Boroughs, but also to the representation of young people from the wider UK geographical spacing with comment about the lack of voice from Scotland and the north of England. Worryingly, this is further extenuated by one interviewee reporting that representation seemed to be rather a cosmetic exercise stating:

“disabled people, we had ethnic, it was almost like a box ticking exercise” (Interview 3, Former LOCOG Youth Panel Member). This suggests that the voice and views were corralled into specific areas desired by the organising committees to control narratives. This is supported by recent evidence which suggests that the human rights of local youth populations are not only

forgotten in the aftermath of mega events, but little consideration is given to their experience (Dowse, Powell and Weed, 2017).

Perhaps most disappointingly for these leveraging styled plans such as pre- and post-event committees is the lack of foresight in the planning for the embedding of committees, or committee members into future on-going structures or organisations. It is clearly acknowledged the distinct roles of planning organisations (LOCOG) and legacy organisations (LLDC). Yet post-event, committees were disbanded with no clear pathway for handover or knowledge transfer.

“we didn’t have chance to feed that back [views on the Games] and they said that there would be the facility to do so but that never happened like I say I wrote a report that was meant to go to those high up in LOCOG and I don’t know whether it ever did” (Interview 3, Former LOCOG Youth Panel Member) Thus in summary in the pre-Games period youth voice appeared to be largely muted or hidden and focused on housing developments, whereas post-Games the

mechanisms were not in place for a continued contribution from local or wider geographical area youth voice.