Playing on the Olympics effect

At lunchtime on July 6th, 2005, a cheer went up across London as it was announced that the 2012 Olympic Games were to be held in the city. Nowhere was that cheer louder than from a colleague: "That's fantastic news," he shouted, tears pricking his eyes. "That's added at least fifty grand to my house price."

My colleague had bought a flat in Barking, a suburb to the east of the to-be-regenerated Stratford. Such was the speculation on the property futures market that by that afternoon, besieged Stratford estate agents were complaining they were struggling to field enquiries from all the potential investors while simultaneously, anyone who was selling in E16, had withdrawn their home in the knowledge that prices would only climb.

Eighteen months on, the London bombings, claims of an overrun and that problem familiar to anyone who has the builders in - how to get out of paying the VAT - have all conspired to take the lustre off the Olympics effect.

As controversy grows over the whole project, it is likely to become a byword for vainglory. Doubtless the promised regeneration of this forlorn area will improve it but, let's face it, just about every other strategy has failed. In a city where transport is everything, Stratford should have boomed long ago. It has three underground lines, two mainline railway networks and it will be one of the few stops on the new Eurostar route when it moves to Kings Cross. It is close to Canary Wharf, has great links to central London and neighbours Hackney which grows ever more fashionable.

And yet, it is defiantly drab and obstinately ungentrified. Finding a property for less than £200,000 (€304,486) is no challenge at all.