Madison Square Garden sphere in Stratford gets the green light: £800m ‘monstrous glowing orb’ the size of Big Ben with 36million LED lights gets the go-ahead from planners – despite objections from thousands of furious east London residents

22 comments

  4. The one in Vegas looks ghastly (to be fair most of Vegas does)

    This is going to be a bigger eyesore than the millennium dome. Stratford borough council should be ashamed for allowing this

  5. Couldn’t use the money for anything else people going hungry left and right qnd this is what we spend 800m the best part of a billion on? 🤦‍♂️if God’s real these people will burn in hell

  7. I like how none of the artist renders of the globe actually have adverts on it. Brushing that aspect under the carpet eh?

  8. So the LLDC has basically just ruined the lives of thousands of local residents so they can allow the Madison Square Garden Company to build a 300 foot perpetually illuminated advert. Because let’s not fuck about here, that’s what this grimly dystopian development is.

    Everyone involved with this can fuck right off.

  9. Good idea in theory, just ditch the LED exterior. London has a shortage of music venues, given its size, so a new one is welcome – but make it so it doesn’t harm the amenity of local residents.

  10. >The exterior of the sphere will show adverts and visual displays, which locals say will stop them sleeping

    Adverts that stop you from sleeping? That’s the capitalist dream!

  11. Who the fuck is signing off on this unnecessary trash. What an absolute waste of money.

  12. Someone posted this on Twitter

    “6-4 in favour of #MSGSphere. All the elected @LondonLegacy
    members voted against, all the unelected members voted in favour. ”

    I’ve always hated the LLDC after it was kept around after the Olympics and somehow its still here in 2022. How is it that an entity can be set up to oversee the planning of the olympic site instead of the borough/council the land is on, and then manage to stick around for 10 years and counting after the Olympics has ended?

    And how is it that apparently unelected people are making the decisions instead of local elected councillors??

    I wouldn’t even mind this so much if the LED dome thing didn’t sound so bad and if it wasn’t designed so poorly that it’s gonna make the area a mess with traffic during large events. They’re expecting 1,000 people to arrive by car on peak days, despite being next to(pretty much in) one of the best connected stations in the country that you can get to very quickly and easily from anywhere in London(crossrail serves the station).

  13. I wonder how many LEDs you’d need to shoot out with an air rifle before it stopped working properly? Y’know, theoretically speaking.

  15. “Right guys we’ve got 800 million quid to spend. What we gonna do for Stratford that’ll really help with the locals lives?”

    “We could help the homeless, build schools, hospitals, youth centres or rehab clinics. We could even put it into renewable energy to bring down everyone’s bil…”

    “FUCK IT. Build a big fuck off light dome. They’ll like that.”

    – Stratford Council probably.

  17. > the size of Big Ben

    Big Ben is less than 10 feet in diameter. Don’t know what the fuss is.

    /s

  18. *A statement from West Ham MP Lyn Brown, opposing scheme, described it as a ‘monstrosity’ and raised fears about added pressure on local transport and in particular the station at Stratford which already copes with travellers to the Westfield shopping centre and West Ham’s 60,000-seater stadium.*

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    So, she opposes more income coming in from outside of the borough? I knew she’s awful, but holy crap, she could honestly not say a thing and still win the election, strongholds are fucking awful places to live in.

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    Edit

    *The Labour MP also scolded the LLDC over the fact the site was previously public land which could have been used for housing before it was sold to real estate business Westfield and ultimately to MSG.*

    ​

    So, how did LLDC get their hands on the land? It wasn’t free, someone sold it, or stupidly signed it away for free either way, Lyn Brown needs to figure out who fucked up.

  19. Unless those residents can offer the council a lot of money, more than that to match the MSG company over several years, they have no chance of overturning this. With councils desperate for money, they will not turn any down when a company like this comes knocking.

  20. Lets see how long those 36 million LEDs last before they die and it ends up being only lit up in patches that looks fucking terrible

  21. Sounds like a good time for people in stratford to buy some masks, whether for sleeping or LED breaking

  22. Boris okays the Eye of Sauron.
    Just another day in Tory Britain- next up, Patel gets her own volcano base and Sunak gives the go ahead to liquidate disability claimants to feed the elderly.

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