London 2012 Athletes To Have Luxury Accommodations

Athletes at the London 2012 Summer Olympic Games will be housed in waterside luxury apartments in towers up to 18 storeys high, reports the Times. When the Games are over the apartments will be sold for up to one million pounds.

The Olympic Village is designed as part of a new “water city” which will incorporate the canals, waterways and green spaces of Lea Valley Park. It will comprise nearly 5,000 apartments.

David Joy, director of planning at London and Continental Railways (LCR) which owns the 180-acre site where the village will be built said, “when the Games are over we will take it back (from the Olympic Development Authority), retrofit it, and sell the flats as residential housing”.

The athletes will live in apartment blocks of at least five storeys equipped with gyms that will be reconfigured into one-bedroom apartments when the Games are over.

A water cascade will be the centrepiece of the development. The Olympic Village will have its own small park, but is also within walking distance of Lea Valley Park.

The LCR will begin the sale of the London village as early as 2008 and hopes to have 75 per cent sold by the time the London 2012 Opening Ceremony is underway.

AT least 30 per cent of the flats will be sold at discounted rates to provide affordable homes, but the largest top floor apartments are expected to sell for as much as one million pounds each.

Meanwhile, there are groups campaigning to have the Olympic Village site remain a car free zone after the Games end.

Carfree UK said it wants “the London Olympics to leave a lasting legacy of sustainability after the Games’.

Friends of the Earth said car free zones “are an important part of the solution to climate change and …help improve local quality of Life”.

Tony Bosworth of Friends of the Earth said, “we strongly support car free zones. We need more of these sort of developments in the future”.

A spokesman for the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) said, “care free development has a key role to play in delivering sustainable urban communities. We welcome this important initiative to promote it benefits”.

The proposal for a car free zone has been put to London’s mayor and the Olympic Delivery Authority. Write or read comments about this article

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