Dave Hill, Editor of the fantastic On London website, came on Concilio’s podcast Polls Apart to discuss his new book ‘Olympic Park: When Britain Built Something Big’.

Going back to the 1970's and the initial attempts to get a London Olympic bid going, the book demonstrates how placing an aspiration for the regeneration of East London at its heart convinced the Olympic Committee to back London, as well as politicians at a Regional level (Ken Livingstone) and the Labour Government who at the time were far from being Ken's biggest fans.

The story about how the site was pulled together is also fascinating and the book is full of great anecdotes around the Olympic Stadium, screaming rows in Sir Robin Wales' office between the Reuben brothers and Westfield's management, CPOs of existing businesses, future uses for Here East, Boris's vision for a cultural 'Olympicopolis', (with that phrase being dropped when Sadiq became Mayor) and the massive challenge of removing 52 pylons to get the site ready for development.

If you would like the book (and if you are interested in London, we can't recommend it highly enough), you can buy it here.

If you would like to listen to the podcast (which we also recommend!), you can do so here.