West Ham United’s anchor tenancy at the London Stadium was always intended to bring jobs to the area around Stratford, and new figures published today show the contribution that the Club have directly made towards that goal.
The London boroughs of Newham, Tower Hamlets and Barking & Dagenham have the highest rates of unemployment in the capital, and youth unemployment is a particular problem in each borough. One of the key reasons the 2012 Games were staged in East London was to bring investment, regeneration and jobs to the capital’s most deprived area.
Maintaining that legacy was a key component of West Ham’s bid to become the anchor tenant at the former Olympic Stadium, and as a result of the Club’s presence, Stratford will have an extra guaranteed footfall in excess of 1.2 million people each season, supporting the businesses and jobs located in the area, and attracting even greater investment in the years to come.
However, West Ham has also sought to play a direct part in that effort by employing the maximum number of local residents in additional posts created by the Stadium move, working in concert with our partners in the London Borough of Newham through their Newham Workplace service.
So far a total of 81 additional staff have been recruited to work in the Club’s new Stadium Store and Ticket Office facilities on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Of these, 40 per cent live within 3 miles of the Stadium, and three-quarters live in the London Borough of Newham or its six surrounding boroughs. Furthermore over 80% of those recruited within these boroughs are aged 16-24.
West Ham Vice-Chairman Karren Brady is proud of the progress that has been made, saying:
“The concept of an Olympic Legacy for London was founded on the promise that a long-term future for the new Stadium would continue to bring jobs, business and regeneration to the most deprived area of London for many decades to come. And it is West Ham United’s anchor tenancy at the Stadium is what makes that successful long-term future both possible and sustainable.
“Anyone who has visited Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in the past week and witnessed it thriving with over 110,000 West Ham supporters in the space of four days trying out all the facilities and amenities, shopping and eating, and enjoying all that the Park and Stratford as a whole have to offer would be in no doubt about the very tangible regeneration and economic benefits West Ham’s presence in the Stadium is bringing to East London.
“But more than that, we are also actively playing our part by providing jobs for local residents, and giving vocational training and opportunities to thousands of local youngsters through our Foundation. We are proud to play our part in delivering the legacy Britain was promised.”
In addition to the new recruits, West Ham has gone to great lengths to ensure that the staff responsible for stewarding at the Boleyn Ground were able to take up new roles with the contractors responsible for stewarding at the London Stadium.
We are currently recruiting for staff to work across the Club’s Stadium store, warehouse and online store from September in the build up to Christmas. We hope to hire as many local residents as possible, and details of the recruitment process can be found here.