Olympic Games 2012: Legacy

Baroness Andrews Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Andrews]

My Lords, I am very grateful indeed for the opportunity that the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, has offered the House to reflect on the legacy of the Olympics. Like the noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater, I pay tribute to his extraordinary role, not only over the past 20 years but in the way he has seized the opportunities that the Olympics presented to go forward. That was clear in his excellent speech. He has agreed that I can extend the terminology of the debate very slightly to talk about our physical and cultural heritage, but I can also reflect on what he has said in that context about regeneration and the way in which that heritage not only formed some of the most powerful images of the Olympics but helped to show some of the opportunities available to us.

The Olympic vision gave essentially and crucially a defining and dynamic role to our heritage. I declare an interest as the chair of English Heritage. I was very impressed by the way in which the confidence in our culture, our creativity and our communities came across in those images and what they said to the rest of the world, not least in terms of community engagement. I start with the fabulous opening ceremony, which depicted the extraordinary sweep of history from ancient earthworks to the rural and pastoral scene, to the Industrial Revolution and to the National Health Service. It presented breathtaking imagery, which told us who we are, who we think we are and where we have come from. What I found most stirring was the dramatic demonstration that our present brilliance in the two critical creative industries of design and engineering, in which we have a global lead, is rooted in the genius of the Industrial Revolution, stretching from Brunel to Sir Tim Berners-Lee. We witnessed the extraordinary forging of the rings from the furnaces of the past and the creation of a beautiful, exemplary democratic torch, an illustration that our legacy must lie in our future with intensive investment in innovation, design and engineering, because that is what we are very good at.

The point is that we know how to do it. You have only to walk through St Pancras these days and look at the way in which the Kings Cross quarter is developing to see the extraordinary fusion of three centuries of engineering and architectural genius and the incorporation of the old and the new. We must think not only of London but of the images presented of the rest of the country. They include the mills and weaving sheds; the fragile and rather scarce industrial memories, which are becoming the powerhouses of the future; communities engaged in setting up local technical universities; vibrant arts centres; community enterprise; and high-tech industries. We hear no longer the clacking of the looms but the whizzing and whirring of brains in these places.

One aspect of our community legacy will be to ensure that our heritage is seen as something that serves the future—something to be picked up confidently at local and community levels as part of regeneration and industrial policy, as it is already doing in the East End. Indeed, English Heritage invested £1 million in one project, High Street 2012, which saw the restoration of buildings along Mile End Road and new listings along the route, involving children in identifying the most important buildings and drawing them, showing which meant the most to them in their community. That is an excellent legacy for the protection of the future

Above all, the Olympics connected with the reality of who we are and the diversity of our community—a country used to living in the light and shade of history. Everywhere people saw where they lived in a new light as they saw their reflection in the torch as it went through, whether it was at Stonehenge or in our medieval and historic towns. Who will forget the images of London, the three-day eventing in Greenwich Park or beach volleyball on Horse Guards Parade? Apart from the sheer pride in place— which is beyond price—the community benefits in other ways. First, it benefits, I hope, in the way in which heritage is viewed, valued and will be protected in the future. As the noble Lord, Lord King, said, we have seen the extraordinary phenomenon of joyful volunteerism, which I think, like measles, will spread to places that it may not yet have reached. I know that English Heritage will be taking advantage of that.

I turn specifically to the Cultural Olympiad and one of the projects in which English Heritage was involved, Discovering Places, a grass-roots campaign of live events, performances, online blogs and social media bringing together more than 250,000 people in this country to discover their local built and historic environments. These were pioneering partnerships. Of course, arts and heritage go together. There is no contest; it is not new. But the Cultural Olympiad broke down some of the barriers between culture, the arts, heritage and technologies. It encouraged risk, shoved out the boundaries and engaged on an innovative scale. It showed that there are innovative ways of bringing arts and heritage together in the physical framework, such as, for example, setting fire to Stonehenge. That actually worked all right. I could give many examples, but what I am trying to say is that the Olympics and Paralympics gave us a unique opportunity to showcase the monuments, the buildings and the beautiful places that are our legacy. That legacy would not have existed if our predecessors had not recognised that it was necessary to protect it. Part of the legacy should be to ensure that we understand and care for it, and protect it more effectively, so that it can serve the future more energetically.

I shall end by advising noble Lords that 2013 may be the morning after the party but for our cultural heritage it is the beginning of the party, as we celebrate in 2013 the centenary of the Ancient Monuments Act, introduced in this House by a Private Member’s Bill. The Act recognised for the first time that there are some physical remains of the nation’s history that are so special and so significant that only the nation itself can look after them properly to secure their survival and lay the foundations for a world class heritage protection system. That collection of 850 monuments all over Britain, cared for by the leading cultural institutions—English Heritage, Cadw and Historic Scotland—tell the story of the nation. This year we will be telling the story of the nation in that way, and I hope that noble Lords will enjoy it and join us in doing it. We are celebrating what our predecessors achieved, and we will be inviting those communities to step further into history. One of my hopes is that there will be increasing commitment in local communities to looking after their local heritage. Above all, I want that legacy and the Olympics this year, which made it so much more plausible, to show that we are neither tied to the past nor indifferent to it. We are very comfortable in making the old serve the new. Our heritage is not static; it is not separate from life but dynamic. It is something that we are not afraid to change. It is our competitive edge and we should build on it. That is something that we will owe to the Olympics as well.