Greenwich traders vent fury at Locog as spectators directed past their market & profits suffer

[Brixton Hatter]

Stallholders at Greenwich Market have said they are furious that barriers put in place to direct crowds have affected trade.
They say the Olympics have had a negative effect, with many reporting a drop in business.
In a statement, Locog said: "The barriers are put in place to manage the crowds of spectators making their way towards Greenwich Park."

The poor fuckers have got loads of extra stock in, but they're having the worst week they can remember, according to a trader I just saw on the news.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-19067764

I had to go to Stratford on Saturday lunchtime to pick up someone's bike (they'd been arrested as part of Critical Mass) and I noticed the tubes and DLR were pretty empty. As I got to Stratford High Street, the place was deserted apart from some Tamil hunger strikers. A man forlornly stood outside his shop holding a plate full of food: "best sandwich in London mate?" he asked. I declined (as I don't eat meat). There were no customers in his shop and he'd been stood there in vain for hours. Despite being less than 5 mins from the Olympic stadium, I couldn't see any local businesses benefitting from the "Olympics effect". It looks like the sponsors and the official games retailers are the only ones who are going to make any money.



More about the wider effect on London here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19059880

Anyone else seen examples of this? Or any evidence to the contrary?

 

[ddraig]

yup was always going to be like this
pretend there's a legacy, it will bring in millions of people and squillions of pounds, and that EVERYONE is talking about it. then when it gets underway, tough shit.

in Cardiff they are shutting more roads for longer than they do for a rugby game which tend to sell out.
the capacity of the stadium has been reduced from 75,000 to 40,000 for all games in the olympics and the majority of them have not sold out, tomorrows games being an exception.

proper killjoy overkill. brand police telling local traders what they can and can't do and plod strutting around with MP5's. more of a risk of one of them getting bored and trigger happy than any terrorist attack or demonstration

 

[ddraig]

and i heard, not sure if true, that the council had a huge contingency budget for the pissing coca cola concert for the flame when it was not even open to the public but was a lottery for tickets!

 

[Cid]

The poor fuckers have got loads of extra stock in, but they're having the worst week they can remember, according to a trader I just saw on the news.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-19067764

I had to go to Stratford on Saturday lunchtime to pick up someone's bike (they'd been arrested as part of Critical Mass) and I noticed the tubes and DLR were pretty empty. As I got to Stratford High Street, the place was deserted apart from some Tamil hunger strikers. A man forlornly stood outside his shop holding a plate full of food: "best sandwich in London mate?" he asked. I declined (as I don't eat meat). There were no customers in his shop and he'd been stood there in vain for hours. Despite being less than 5 mins from the Olympic stadium, I couldn't see any local businesses benefitting from the "Olympics effect". It looks like the sponsors and the official games retailers are the only ones who are going to make any money.



More about the wider effect on London here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19059880

Anyone else seen examples of this? Or any evidence to the contrary?

The main bit and concourse of the station was absolutely rammed when I went there at 8pm on sat... Of course the route to the Olympic park conveniently passes straight through Westfield and the streets around it were pretty much deserted.

 

[wemakeyousoundb]

Pretty shitty for the market traders, but I'm not sure why they thought locog was going to do them any favours, I'm sure there are some high fee paying food concessions in the park for the events duration and that is the side where locogs' bread is buttered

Satbir Bakshi, owner of Hotel Earls Court, told the BBC: "Everyone was expecting big, big bonanzas, but this is the worst I have seen in 30 years.
"The Olympics was all hyped up, and every hotel - including mine - put their prices up.
"But with a week to go before the start of the games, I had to put my prices back down again. Like everyone else I'm only half full. Normally I'm full at this time of the year."

my heart bleeds for him.

 

[IC3D]

how many of the 8000 jobs in the Westfield shopping centre will go after the games, my friend's contract ends in September as I imagine others do, still better than nothing for many.

 

[pinkmonkey]

I reckon it'll hold up in Westfield, the place has been very busy since it opened - it's more convenient than going into town for many of us. But I went into Oxford Circus for a meeting today and I've never seen it so quiet. It is fucking dead.
We were the only people in the cafe that we met at. You could actually see the pavement. It is normally totally mobbed. It's gonna hurt people, especially the small businesses.

 

[boohoo]

Everyone has been discouraged from going into central London as it is too busy.

I'm sure fares to the UK have been high for the Olympics and with hotel prices being high I imagine some tourists would have gone elsewhere (and wait for a different time to visit)

 

[IC3D]

I think Pinkmonkey might have a point though that Westfield might help kill off Oxford Street, someone's no doubt done some maths.

 

[pinkmonkey]

Well you get what they call cannibalisation when you open a new centre, in that it would take some trade, but the population of London has gone up as well, so I don't think it'll make that much difference to in town - that's a major tourist destination, Westfield (both centres) usually aren't. They tend to be where Londoners shop - I'm not a fan of the West End, it does my head in, I'll go to the shopping centre, normally, because it's only 10 mins away by train and I can be in and out of there in an hour.
But traders in town, they rely on the daytrippers and European minibreak shoppers in the school holidays. They just aren't here, the former won't come because they've been told to stay away and the latter been put off by rip-off hotel prices. The only foreigners I saw in town were wearing Olympics passes.

 

[zenie]

Urgh wall to wall chain stores, why would Londoners tend to shop in Malls? Yuk. I'm surprised at you Pinkmonkey!

 

[temper_tantrum]

Why is anyone still surprised by this? It's a giant corporate shitfest. Can't believe anyone expected anything different.

 

[TitanSound]

Add the fact that the numpty politicians and organisers scared everyone out of London, and you have the "Olympic Effect".

 

[Gromit]

This reminds me of when they were deciding where the new English National stadium should be built. They choose Wembley stated that it would help regenerate the area. It never did last time so why would it now?

Same with Stratford. People will rush in to see their event (worried about queues and security delays) and afterwards won't hang around for fear that it will take ages to get home because of the crowds.

 

[Wilf]

. A man forlornly stood outside his shop holding a plate full of food: "best sandwich in London mate?" he asked.

He's obviously not an Olympic 'partner'. By the by, I'm quite surprised by my own reaction to the whole thing. Always thought I wish we hadn't got the fucking thing and detested both the corporate side of it and the way that corporate shit has been backed up with corporate/state power. Same time I've been quite affected by the individual athletes, their stories and the idea of seeing what you can get out of a human body. What's really the most depressing thing is (perhaps really obviously) how capital exploits and colonises these positive human things, through to the point of screwing local people.

 

[temper_tantrum]

Btw is it possible to put an entire forum on ignore?

 

[pinkmonkey]

Urgh wall to wall chain stores, why would Londoners tend to shop in Malls? Yuk. I'm surprised at you Pinkmonkey!

And the West End isnt wall to wall chainstores? If i have to visit chainstores I'd rather go somewhere where I dont have to walk for miles fighting my way through lost tourists in the rain - somewhere where there might be a loo.
I really dont enjoy that kind of shopping, it's work, not done for fun.

 

[Brixton Hatter]

I think Pinkmonkey might have a point though that Westfield might help kill off Oxford Street, someone's no doubt done some maths.

Killing off Oxford Street would be no bad thing - it's utterly horrible.

 

[Brixton Hatter]

Why is anyone still surprised by this? It's a giant corporate shitfest. Can't believe anyone expected anything different.

I'm not really surprised at the fact small businesses are suffering - that was always going to be the case and we all predicted that in advance. I'm surprised Stratford High Street was very quiet though. And here, Locog have actively sought to make people walk past Greenwich market by installing barriers on the pavements and shepherding people towards Greenwich Park. In some places if you wanted to use local shops you'd actually have to clamber over a three foot high barrier.