0915 Hrs GMT
London
Sunday
17 October 2010
Editor © Muhammad Haque
The "No to elected mayor" CAMPAIGN BHANGEELAAR! warns 2012 Games Hosting 'boss' Seb Coe of community mobilisation to stop the snubs to the East End. Campaign set to be announced soon.
[To be continued]
From the web site of the "East London Advertiser" October 17 2010
Latest News:
Anger at ticket prices for London 2012 Olympics as organisers accused of ignoring the East End John Hyde, Chief Reporter
Friday, 15 October, 2010 10:29 AM
ORGANISERS of the London 2012 Olympics have revealed ticketing prices for the 26 sports of the Games.
Share A general view of Horse Guards Parade, the venue for Beach Volleyball at the London 2012 Olympic Games ORGANISERS of the London 2012 Olympics have revealed ticketing prices for the 26 sports of the Games. LOCOG today confirmed less than a third of tickets, roughly 2.5 million of the 8.8 million in total, will be priced at £20 or less.
Around two-thirds of tickets will be £50 or less and 90 per cent will be £100 or less. The ticket prices are per session and will vary between sports. Greenwich Council Leader Chris Roberts LOCOG Chair Seb Coe said: ‘We have three clear principles for our ticketing strategy – tickets need to be affordable and accessible to as many people as possible; tickets are an important revenue stream for us to fund the Games; and our ticketing plans have the clear aim of filling our venues to the rafters. But Greenwich Council - one of the host boroughs - has accused LOCOG of making “secret deals” to price out thousands of youngsters from the host boroughs from watching the sports.
Cllr Chris Roberts, Leader of Greenwich Council said: “Olympic organisers have had five years to plan a ticket allocation which would permit the children of the Host Boroughs to attend the Games taking place on their own doorsteps. Instead seven out of eight schoolchildren will be denied that chance.
“The children of the East End were used by the Olympic organisers to win the bid for the Games in Singapore, they have been called upon endlessly to take part in photo-opportunities to build support for the Games and are even used in consultation groups to advise on how to run the Games and build a legacy.”
“Repeatedly, the Olympic Host Boroughs have offered to buy tickets for their children but have been refused. LOCOG don’t want the authentic East End, they don’t want our money, and they certainly don’t want our kids.”
Dee Doocey, the Liberal Democrat London Assembly Olympics Spokesperson, said: “We were promised ‘the most inclusive Games ever’; that the Games would be ‘highly affordable’ and “that half the tickets would cost £20 or less. “But we now discover that of the 8.8 million tickets available, just 2.5 million (less than 30%) will cost £20 or less. Of these 1.3 million will be reserved for the excellent Pay Your Age and London 2012 Ticketshare schemes, leaving just 1.2 million £20 tickets available for sale to Londoners, the UK, Europe and the rest of the world. “To add insult to injury it is totally deplorable that no concessions have been made for the communities immediately surrounding the park, who have had to live next to the largest construction site in Europe for the last five years. They at least should have access to discounted, if not free tickets.”
But London Mayor Boris Johnson said children will get the chance to see world class sporting action in the 2012 Olympics.
More than 120,000 free tickets will be distributed to school children aged between 10 and 18 through LOCOG’s Get Set programme. “Having invested so much I want all Londoners to have a real sense that these are their Games too,” said the Mayor. “So it is right that, through this scheme, we can acknowledge their support by rewarding thousands of London kids with the unique opportunity to be part of this amazing sporting spectacle.”
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BHANGEELAAR! the Campaign against an elected mayor in Tower Hamlets has this morning [Sunday 17 October 2010] posted the following comment on the "East London Advertiser" web site in response to the newspaper's online item "Anger at ticket prices for London 2012 Olympics as organisers accused of ignoring the East End".
BHANGEELAAR! says this:
"The locally elected Tower Hamlets Council comes across, once again, as a bloated outfit with so much egg on its face that it will require us ordinary people in the East End to do something to make up for the Council’s abysmal and unjustified descent into insignificance! The East End must not be allowed to be snubbed by Seb Coe or the others not named but known to be following the same double standards. In the years since the Hosting bid was 'successful', Tower Hamlets Council has been told that the agenda setters for the BIG EVENTS WOULD snub the East End. High ticket prices constitute a most cruel snub. The Council failed to pay attention. It is time that the community got mobilised to defend our dignity and to actually deliver the access to the 2012 events that our area deserves. Watch this space. You have been warned, Seb Coe!"
Bhangeelaar!
Sunday,
October 17, 2010
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