Julia Stephenson: The Green Goddess

Until now, I've been in two minds about the 2012 London Olympics. On one hand, I welcome any excuse for a bit of morale boosting razzmatazz. Sport, like music, is at best a uniting force that transcends race, class and creed. On the other, it's galling that we can provide more than £3bn for a sporting event while we shut down hospitals, post offices and schools.

Mind you, the £3bn pales into insignificance when you consider the £8bn cost of the Iraq war to the UK taxpayer (figures from Stop the War Coalition) and that the Government is considering spending £76bn to replace and update Trident.

But it wasn't just the soaring cost of the Games that turned me against them. The final straw was discovering that the pretty, vibrant wildlife haven of Manor Garden allotments in Hackney has a compulsory purchase order slapped on it and will soon be bulldozed to make way for a concrete walkway.

After the four-week Olympics, this will be broken up and made into a reed bed. This may satisfy some environmental concerns, but a community will be destroyed. And although the allotments have been earmarked another site in nearby Leyton, guess what: the people of Leyton are rabidly against the fencing off of their dwindling open space.

The London Olympics were to be famously green but judging by the vast loss of natural habitat sacrificed for a four-week jamboree, this is not the case. Much of the construction will only have a short-lived usefulness and the carbon contribution to the atmosphere will be enormous.

The Olympic site in East London is sold as a dreary area in much need of regeneration. But it is also home to many playing fields, sporting pitches and wildlife habitats that are now under threat.

Despite assurances that no green field sites will be lost, this is not the case. In summer 2003, commitments were given by Olympics bid company London 2012 and the Mayor of London that "no permanent or temporary facilities would be built on Hackney Marshes". It took a mere six months for them to go back on these commitments.

East Marsh is being taken for coach and car parks. There is a commitment to replace the sports pitches on East Marsh after the Games, but Ken Livingstone and Tessa Jowell said, in response to reports of spiralling costs, that land in the Lower Lee Valley will be sold off after the Games. Open space in Waltham Forest and Newham will also be lost to concrete facilities.

Fortunately, locals are fighting back and a dynamic campaign has sprung up to save Manor Garden allotments. Let's give them our support and ensure the survival of our much-needed open spaces.

www.clubplan.org - Hackney and East London environment forum; www.lifeisland.org - for details of Manor Garden Allotments campaign