27/07/2017 London News

Good evening and welcome. I'm Alice Bhandhukravi.

Five years today the capital welcomed the world -

for the opening ceremony of the London Olympics.

But beyond the spectacle of the shown and the sporting

achievement, London won the Games on the promise of a lasting legacy.

Among the pledges: transforming part of east London,

So five years on has London 2012 delivered?

And was it worth the ?9 billion price tag?

Some feel the promises made on regeneration

were wildly optimistic, a bit like Usain Bolt saying he

could run the 100 metres in seven seconds.

His world record of 9.58 is pretty impressive, but it's not

So were their promises made on jobs and housing

It often seems tailor of two Stratfords.

For some the Olympics has given huge opportunities, while others feel

This is a new bakery, a small business thriving

There is a community that developed now, people

living here, people that know each other, people that have their

There is now some history in this village.

But just outside the park, isolated on the other side of the tracks,

Half the houses are gone, there used to be

around, I'd say, between 50 to maybe 80 factories around here, which kept

Do you think there's a sense that part of the community's

Meet Neil and Jackie, volunteer games makers in

They loved it so much here they've retired from Kent and is now

live in a swanky flat in the former athletes village.

6000 people live in a 3000 new homes here.

Incredible place to live, it really is

And there's just so many things to do and a variety of

There's a lot of young people here, which keeps you young.

Outside the park, things are different.

It's from the top of this building that

the BBC broadcast throughout the Olympics.

It's just a few hundred yards from the site.

This is what is frustrating some local people.

There isn't much sign of any regeneration

There used to be hundreds of people living here.

Now most of the flats are boarded up.

For jobs, absolutely, we've helped 34,000

In terms of housing, yes, the houses are not enough, they're too

And actually, you have to lay the blame squarely at the foot

Government is not putting the money into housing that

There was a ?28 million overspend on the stadium

last year and it cost 323 million to convert it for football.

The orbit made a profit of just over ?200,000,

but had a new ?3.5 million slide pitted and has a ?12 million loan

The aquatic centre was subsidised to the tune of ?1.4

million, which is expected to continue for many years.

And the Copper Box lost over ?800,000 last

I think it is true to say it's the only games that has really

provided a long-term legacy, providing a transformation in the

That is because it was planned for from the beginning.

The Olympics was the catalyst that has transformed

How successful it's been depends on your perspective.

Well that's the legacy for London, but what about that all

The promise that helped win the bid for London.

A key legacy aim was to increase grassroots participation and to

encourage the whole population to be more physically active.

In most sports, weekly participation hasn't

Among the biggest drops have come in swimming, with 757,000 fewer

people taking part every week, and football, down by more than 170

Some, including those who run the Tower Hamlets youth sport

foundation, blame a lack of investment at grassroots level.

They say they're being forced out of business after the council

Its most appalling, when some of the most

deprived children in the country, like the children of Tower Hamlets,

have these opportunities take away from them.

Tower Hamlets Council insist it remains committed to

ensuring young people have access to sport.

On Sunday, former London 2012 chief Lord Coe was asked to what

extent he blamed the failure to boost participation on government

decisions to cut sports budgets in schools.

I don't actually, because for the first couple of years after

the games I was involved with legacy work in this area.

In fact, we found between 150-200,000,000 goes into

More people are running than ever before, more

Athletics up by 864000 and cycling up by 264,000 are among

the few sports that have seen a rise in participation.

So how has athletics made the leap from Olympic

At Lea Valley athletics club, they felt

It can be accessed by anybody, whether they

are rich, poor, what background you come from.

It's got so many different disciplines within it.

Whether you want to be a sprinter, long runner or Thrower.

London Olympic gold medallist Katherine

Grainger is the new chair of UK sport.

It funds elite athletes based on their medal prospects.

Many say that model needs change for the

Do we want to look at a wide approach that actually maybe we'll

But support more sports but he won't be as

That is constantly going to be looked at.

There is a big review coming up next year.

For some, sacrificing Olympic glory for

greater grass-roots opportunity will feel like a price worth paying.

Well our reporter Caroline Davies has been looking a the Olympic

Caroline, so the Olympics cost a lot more than was planned and we're

That's true, there is still a large amount of money being ploughed into

the Olympic Park as we saw in that piece. Let's take one part of that,

the stadium. It's been converted into West Ham's homeground but the

conversion costs are much more than was estimated that the Mayor of

London has commissioned a report to look into it, we'll find out in the

early autumn. What about people who live in East London has it changed

their lives? We spoke to an academic who specialises in analysing that.

She says the East Village have been a success but has been replicated

across the rest of East London. You have this fantastic facility in the

park and if you go across the road you see lots of people living in

quite difficult conditions. The homelessness has gone up in this

area significantly. It always has had one of the highest waiting lists

in the country and continues to have high levels of housing need, so you

have those two worlds and we need much more Easter villages. What

about the sporting legacy? No doubt London is a fantastic place to host

any sporting occasion but the real concern is getting people out on a

sporting fields, into swimming pools, so we might see a change to

funding next year. Onto the rest of the day's news now

and it's been revealed the Grenfell Tower is unlikely to be

demolished untill the end of next year-

but, within the next few weeks, the building is to be covered

in protective plastic wrapping. Scaffolding will also be put up,

to help forensic teams, as they continue their investigation

into the fire. If you were living close

to Grenfell Tower the night it burned, you probably want to forget

what you saw. When I seen the building,

I see some mother throw his baby When mother shout, I'll die,

but try to live my son. I'm on the 19th floor

of a neighbouring tower block. Every morning, residents

here and in a neighbouring blocks wake up to what is still a horrific

and extensive crime scene. You can still see forensic teams

poring through debris From mid-August the building

is going to get a protective That will begin the process

of taking it down. In terms of recovery,

by putting the scaffolding around we can put a lift on the building

and that lift, as I said earlier, allows us to take some of that

material, nearly 15 tonnes, on each floor, down

the side of the building. It also helps the criminal

investigation because we're having a scaffolding and the wrap around

it, enabling us to take some of the panels on the outside

of the building, they can be taken Earlier, a memorial service for five

of the Grenfell victims at a church More pain and more tears for those

this tragedy spared. It's time for me to wish

you goodnight, I'll leave you with Jay Wynne

who has the weather. Good evening. This is the view from

one of our weather watchers about 4:30pm. Atrocious conditions. About

an hour later not far away from Old Street at the Barbican resort patchy

cloud and sunshine coming through, so it was one of those days of sunny

spells and sharp showers. We'll start tomorrow on a pretty

reasonable note, bright start that will turn increasingly cloudy as the

day goes on. Still a risk of the odd shower in the next few hours but I

suspect most of us will be fine and dry overnight with variable cloud,

clear spells coming and going and by the end of the night not

particularly cold. 12, 13, maybe 14 degrees first thing. A bright start

of the day, some spells of sunshine. Catch yourself lucky if you catch a

shower tomorrow because most will be bright and dry in the morning but

through the afternoon cloud will increase with the risk of rain later

on probably into the early part of the evening. Top temperature around

19, 20, 21 degrees. Looking ahead to Saturday, start on a reasonable note

but there will be wetter weather later. Through Sunday and Monday

but there will be wetter weather later. Through Sunday and Monday it

looks dry and bright. Here is Darren with the national picture.

Not the sort of whether we'd hoped for at this time of year. It's still

warm in the sun does come out. This was a weather watcher picture sent

from Fife. We seems angry looking clouds today. Here's one of them,

it's brought heavy rain, heavy showers. We had some of those

earlier today across Scotland, recently they've affected

Lincolnshire. In the last few hours across