[Aromasin]

This was a massive benefit that came from the UK Olympics. Almost every facility that was used throughout the games continues to be used to this day.

"When the Park opens fully in spring 2014, it will provide a world-class hub for performance and community sport, offering a range of 25 indoor and outdoor activities every day, all year round. The iconic Aquatics Centre will offer two 50-metre pools and a diving pool, as well as seating for 2,500 spectators, while the Velodrome will be reopened as the Lee Valley VeloPark, providing state-of-the art cycling facilities. The Eton Manor hockey and tennis facilities, meanwhile, will operate as Lee Valley Hockey and Tennis Centre, offering two outdoor hockey pitches, six outdoor and four indoor tennis courts. In 2015, the venue will stage the European Hockey Championships – the first international sporting competition secured for the Park after the Games.

The centrepiece of the Park – the Olympic Stadium – will also host elite international sporting action, including five matches during the 2015 Rugby World Cup and the IAAF and IPC Athletics World Championships in 2017. From 2016, it will also be the home of English Premier League football club West Ham United, who will take residency as the Stadium’s long-term anchor tenant.

The Olympic Park’s Copper Box venue has already reopened for public use, offering courts for 20 different sports including basketball, boxing and badminton as well as a state-of-the-art gym. The venue will not only provide fantastic facilities for the community, it will also be a home for elite sport, with the London Lions basketball team set to play their home matches at the arena.

But the Games have not only provided London and its residents with new sporting facilities, they also led to major infrastructure improvements, with Transport for London investing GBP 6.5 billion in its transport network in preparation for the 2012 Games.

This investment included ten railway lines and 30 new bridges, which will continue to connect London communities after the Games, while at least 60 Games-related projects were initiated to promote greener travel, including a GBP 10 million investment to upgrade pedestrian and cycling routes across London.

The Olympic Village, meanwhile, will also provide a permanent legacy for the whole of London, creating a brand new residential quarter of the city, to be known as “East Village”.

The Athletes’ Village is being transformed into 2,818 new homes – including 1,379 affordable homes – providing essential new housing for more than 6,000 people in east London. New parklands, open space and community facilities will also support the communities that develop in the area following the Games."

[leoedin]

From a logical point of view, we could have spent that money on those venues without the Olympics. There was nothing stopping us spending £6.5bn on transport, or building flats in Stratford, or building a velodrome, without the Olympics. In fact, you could argue it would be more cost effective - many of the Olympic venues aren't wholly suited to other uses (eg the stadium isn't the stadium a football team would build).

The only real argument for the Olympics from a legacy point of view is that it provides a fixed deadline and a potential for very public failure if you don't deliver - which probably stopped a lot of the graft and politicising that would normally accompany infrastructure investments of this size.