Call to hand 2012 media centre to local groups

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Olympic legacy chiefs should abandon plans to attract a big broadcaster as the main tenant for media facilities created for the 2012 Olympics.

A committee of London Assembly members were told today that a consortium of local organisations from the creative industries should instead occupy the press and broadcasting centres created for the games.
Anna Harding, chief executive of Space Studios, said: ‘You don’t need to go around the world looking for an anchor tenant. You can talk to the young people of Hackney.’

Ms Harding, whose company specialises in finding studio space for artists, said that rather than looking for one employer for life, most of her media tenants had ‘portfolio careers’ and came together for different projects. ‘That’s the future of work,’ she said.

The committee also heard that there was considerable demand from media professionals living in the area for workspace to take advantage of the site’s proximity to the Eurostar terminal and the M11.

Witnesses suggested that many media companies already want to move further east because there are more affordable facilities available.

There were also calls to bring in an organisation from another sector such as a university, the British Film Institute or the Royal Opera House to help to build a creative hub.

But the hearing also uncovered potential problems with the media centre’s legacy potential. John Burton, director of developer Westfield’s Stratford City project, warned that accessibility was an issue, with its location some distance from Stratford and Hackney railway stations.

Ms Harding said the broadcasting facilities had been built to an outmoded specification, which had produced something that is ‘a darned insult to Hackney’.

Charlie Forman, chief officer of the 2012 Olympic Games for Hackney Council, insisted the structure was sound for the long term. But he admitted that ‘it was not as future proofed as we would have liked’ because of the failure to find a private investor.