An Olympic Ideal for Development

Excellence, respect and friendship may be the foundations on which the Olympic movement is built, but legacy is the yardstick by which a Games is judged.

For Paris, legacy means sustainability; 95% of its Olympic infrastructure is pre-existing or temporary. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is the organisers’ priority for these Green Games.

And even before the closing ceremony of these Games, the next has already fired the starting gun on its social legacy. Three years ago, LA 2028 began funding youth sport across Los Angeles, helping bring children back to sport and fitness post-pandemic.

There are very good environmental reasons for these approaches, of course. Perhaps another is that when it comes to physical legacy, it’s hard to compete with London. More than a million people already visit the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park; now East Bank – the new cultural quarter at the heart of the park - is adding to the London 2012 story. With V&A East, BBC Music Studios, London College of Fashion, Sadler’s Wells East and UCL soon to be fully up and running, visitor, student and worker numbers will climb again.

But London’s is so much more than a physical legacy.

Spirit of 2012 is now in its second decade of spreading the pride and positivity generated by the hosting the Olympics.

Fuelled by an initial £47m National Lottery endowment, it supports projects that “foster social unity, champion youth empowerment, and inspire increased participation in physical activity, arts and culture and volunteering”. Over the past decade it has funded involvement of more than three million people in events and activities, supported 60,000 volunteers and encouraged 86,000 people into longer-term, regular physical activity and art and culture.

Faster, Higher, Stronger was the original Olympic motto and its true of legacy too, as host cities seek to deliver lasting benefits quickly, impactfully and enduringly.

This thinking does not only apply to the Olympics, of course. Take Glasgow 2014. In the decade since the city hosted the Commonwealth Games, Spirit of 2012 has helped 30,000 Glaswegians get active, with 80% of those taking part reporting improved mental wellbeing.

So why not take this thinking from large-scale sporting events and into development?

There is an interesting experiment happening right now in Brent Cross, where Barnet Council and Related Argent are delivering an £8bn urban regeneration scheme. Like London 2012, the focus is on physical and social legacy. That’s not unusual, you might say, but I don’t think I’ve seen such forensic measurement of the latter.

“The goal is to take regular snapshots of the community and build a body of data that will help guide our decision-making as the development progresses,” they promise.

The Flourishing Index will measure success and test whether the goal to create an environment where everyone has the chance to be their best selves, to contribute positively to their community and to live a good life has been achieved.

Critically by setting base scores for the start of the project, they – and we – should know whether the physical legacy of 6,700 homes is matched by a social legacy where equality and equity are delivered too.

It is an almost Olympic ideal for development, and one that can apply elsewhere too.

Shouldn’t we all be striving to deliver excellence, respect and friendship, faster, higher and stronger?