Building an Olympic city for 2012
By Mike MacFarlane, Executive Editor, BBC London
Last autumn there was a growing sense in London that, while the big national headlines might have diminished slightly, the hard work of getting everything in place for 2012 was going on apace. BBC London kept a close eye on all the developments, as it will do week in week out right up to the opening ceremony in Stratford.
As the difficult decisions are being made, BBC London is keeping Londoners up to date with how the venues are developing and changing, the ideas that are abandoned and the new ones being introduced, and the continuing pressure on costs and accountability.
The time given by key stakeholders to BBC London has been extremely valuable – the Olympics Minister on her visit to Beijing, Lord Coe on the Politics Show, and both of them, along with the Mayor, in regular appearances on Vanessa Feltz's radio show, answering the queries and concerns of listeners in London.
BBC London has built on the work it has already done with communities in east London during the summer, and its video diarists, in conjunction with the BBC's Video Nation project, are producing a regular stream of films on how life around the Stratford site is changing.
As 2008 beckons, there's a real excitement building that in this Olympic year – the 60th and 100th anniversaries of London's previous Games – the capital will be swept up by what it means to be an Olympic city. The build-up to Beijing will be well reflected in London and, as ever, BBC London will be at the heart of it – on TV, on radio, online.
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