Thousands of South Africans are being displaced in preparation for the 2010 World Cup. While Durban completes the finishing touches on its new stadium, thousands of the city’s poor who live in sprawling informal settlements are threatened with eviction. On Saturday, an armed gang of some forty men attacked an informal settlement on Durban’s Kennedy Road, killing at least two people and destroying thirty shacks. We speak to two South African activists who are fighting back.

Democracy now

eviction notice

Ardenlea Street

As the Centre of Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) have shown, when a big new development is attached to a major sporting event, such as an Olympics or Commonwealth Games, people are often forced to move from their homes and relocate their businesses. The Olympic Games alone has displaced over two million of people from host cities around the world through demolitions, higher rents and gentrification (the displacement of poorer residents to make way for wealthier, higher tax-paying residents).

Whether the Games will bring benefits to an area over a short or long time is hotly disputed, but the inevitable reality is that individuals, sometimes whole communities, will be displaced to make way for new facilities. The residents of Dalmarnock (an area which has suffered from serious under-investment) are currently bearing the brunt of this process of displacement to allow Glasgow to host the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

Recently, a Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) was served by Glasgow City Council on remaining properties (not already in Council ownership) which are earmarked for demolition to make way for the building of the Athlete’s Village. This includes properties in Ardenlea Street and a number of shops in Springfield Road. The story of the Jaconelli family who live in Ardenlea Street, indicates the Council’s lack of consideration for local people as pressure mounts to keep the Games on budget and on schedule.

eastern promise?

Duty bound to justify the enormous expense and disruption in the East End for less than two weeks of TV spectacle, the Commonwealth Games promoters are keen to impress the importance of a Games ‘Legacy’. Much has been made of the fact that the Commonwealth Games Village, constructed as a ‘global showcase’ for athletes quarters, will later be ‘retro-fitted’ into a new riverside housing neighbourhood that will benefit the local population.

Glasgow City Council Leader, Stephen Purcell, has claimed that the Village will be one of “the greatest providers of opportunities” before and after 2014: “After the Games, the Village area will become a vibrant neighbourhood, a flagship for the regeneration of Glasgow’s East End and a visible reminder of the legacy of the Games”. Yet the hype, as ever, requires a reality check. Of the 1,500 houses, 1,200 will be for private sale, while only 300 (or 20%) will be for socially rented housing. The question of who exactly will benefit from the ‘Legacy’ is important. Will local people benefit – or will big business and the wealthy?

the scale of things to come: roads above rooftops

The Games organizers have made much of their green credentials leading up to 2014 – but do they really come up to scratch? Recent news that The City Council may be adding Ultra Low Carbon Vehicles (ULCV) to its fleet, seem on the surface to suggest that Glasgow is taking its commitment to the environment seriously. Yet the UK Government’s Ultra Low Carbon Vehicle Demonstration Programme (ULCVDP) only involves 100 cars nationwide.

Given that Glasgow City Council is steaming ahead with yet more destructive motorway projects, this looks more like ‘greenwash’ than ‘green games’ to us at the Monitor. The Scottish Government has recently admitted that planned new major roads will increase carbon dioxide emissions by more than 250,000 tonnes a year by 2025. More than half of the extra emissions will be produced by the five-mile M74 northern extension – a key ‘legacy’ component of both CG 2014 and the Clyde Gateway Initiative.

April 02, 2009.

 The economic system is broken, and attempts by governments to fix it by kick-starting growth and consumerism are “delusional” and “pathological”, the Westminster and Holyrood governments will be warned by their own advisers this week.

 

A ground-breaking report by the leading environmental advisers to First Minister Alex Salmond and Prime Minister Gordon Brown will deliver a damning verdict on capitalism and demand a radical shift to a fairer, more sustainable society.

Published, August 24th 2008.

A key venue for the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games faces a funding shortfall after the credit crunch scuppered plans to raise the cash through a land sale.

The 12,500-seater Scottish National Arena at the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre (SECC), designed by Foster & Partners, will host gymnastics and netball in 2014. Scottish Enterprise has committed £25m to the £70m project but the SECC planned to use receipts from the sale of land on its site as part of its funding for the arena.

But developer Elphinstone, which prepared the master plan for a £350m “sustainable village” of 3,000 houses on a 64-acre site at the western end of the SECC, says it cannot now realise the full value because of the credit crunch and has pulled a sale to third parties. It had hoped to receive planning consent for the project by 2005 but final approval was only given in May this year when the credit crunch hit the housing market hardest.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article4596445.ece

Published, 24.08.2008

TAXPAYERS ARE losing out on millions of pounds because public bodies are carrying out “irresponsible” land sales while prices tumble during the recession.

Last week, John Swinney, the finance secretary, said he was putting an extra £50 million into the NHS budget so health boards didn’t have to rely on sales to pay for new buildings. “It would be irresponsible to dispose of public land in this particular climate,” he said, “Quite clearly, the market for disposal of land just now – it would be irresponsible to dispose of public land in this particular climate. Obviously we still retain the assets of land and infrastructure that we can utilise at a later stage when the market improves and we can secure proper value for the disposal.”

http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2482573.0.irresponsible_land_sales_cost_public.php