Saturday, January 10, 2009

Number 10 E-Petition on Olympic Health Centre Promise

My local Labour Party CLP, West Ham, is running a campaign against the decision by the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) not to honour a promise to build a purpose built health centre in the Stratford Olympic Village for 2012. Our Labour MP, Lyn Brown, is fully behind us.

Click here to sign the petition or cut and paste this http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/OlympicPromise/

This health centre had been promised as an Olympic legacy for the local community. Once the Olympics took place, the heath centre should have been passed over to the Newham health authority to meet local needs. We will be collecting signatures at a street stall in Stratford next weekend.

The petition says “We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to take action to ensure that the Olympic Delivery Authority makes sure that the promised Health facility is built at the same time as the Olympic village for the benefit of the athletes and then the wider local community. Also to make certain that the Government will commit itself to ensuring a measurable Olympic legacy for the East End of London in skills, jobs, homes and facilities and create an accountable agency to oversee the legacy to the local community"

Further information
The London Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) had promised that a badly needed £10 million health centre would be built in Stratford, Newham, East London. The centre was to cater for athletes during the Games then to be handed over for the benefit of local people afterwards as an Olympic legacy. A funding crisis is threatening to delay the construction until 2020. Many fear that once the ODA is disbanded after the games then no-one is legally liable to build the centre.

The picture above is of of 13 year old Sylvia Diggory who was the first ever NHS patient in 1948, meeting Nye Bevan. He asked her if "if I understood the significance of the occasion and told me it was a milestone in history — the most civilised step any country had ever taken and a day I would remember for the rest of my life". She said of course, "yes". I thought it was somewhat apt.

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