Thronged with excited sports fans little more than a year ago, the Olympic Park now looks lost and dejected, reports Jonathan Slatter.
During London 2012 the Olympic Spirit seemed to fill the whole of Stratford. Now there’s only a hole where it used to be – if my recent visit to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park is anything to go by.
Windswept. Deserted. Overgrown plants obscuring the river running through it (it’s a canal, really; but my point is, if you’re going to have a water feature, you really ought to feature it).
There’s a wooded seating area with pointless ‘animal fact’ plaques and a view of the Helter Skelter, i.e. Orbit Tower, which to my mind is equally pointless.
Even the children’s Adventure Playground had no one playing in it.
While the cheers for Mo Farah, Dave Weir and Jessica Ennis-Hill still sound loud to me, the Spirit of Adventure seems to have already left the stadium and the surrounding Park.
Hopefully it can be rebuilt. Sure needs something to give the place uplift.