Merlene joins Dee Doocey Assembly Member on a tour of the Olympics site at Stratford

11.00.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Fri 26th Jun 2009

Merlene with Dee Doocey AM at Olympic Stadium

"I was interested to see first hand the transformation of a contaminated brown field site into an Olympic mecca. What had started as a mere hope, then a dream come true in Singapore in 2005 with the award of the Olympics 2012 to London as host city is now gradually becoming a reality" said Merlene.

The site which is a compact 2 and half square kilometres has its work cut out including the cleaning of over a million tonnes of soil a day. Even a visit by a group of interested observers had to be scheduled into the logistical department and security cleared before hand. Extraordinarily the structure for the stadium looked almost ready and was rolled out with apparently only 30 skilled workers. Meanwhile the roof of the aquatic centre will be held up by 3 temporary beams.

Hailed as the greenest and most sustainable Olympics yet, half of the goods and waste transported to and from the site will be carried by rail and by water - the River Ley runs through the site.

"My concern is that not just the big businesses such as MacDonalds and Westfield will benefit from the Olympics coming to London. I would like to encourage small businesses including local businesses in Hammersmith to compete for contracts too - do contact me if you need help in this regard or check out

https://www.competefor.com/london2012business/login.jsp " said Merlene.