Apparently there wasn't a Pizza Express in Stratford until a couple of years ago. It was no great loss but given that there are approximately 4.7 on every high street*, it's a little odd that there wasn't one in such a busy conurbation. Why not? Well, who in that area could afford to go?

It's thanks to the Olympics and its aim to build a legacy in East London that there is one now. But while two meals for ten tenner is a start, it's hardly worth £9.3bn.

I bring this up partly because there's a worthy piece in today's Economist focusing on the Olympic legacy project and suggesting that the Olympic legacy not the UK gong-count will be the key result for both the Londoners it affects and the taxpayers funding it.

And yes, it's true that the legacy project is a worthy part of the games but the regeneration of Stratford doesn't just rest on the legacy project: to identify the true costs and benefits of regeneration in Stratford, we need to get away from an Olympic-only standpoint.

First off, our focus only the Olympics itself allows the full regeneration efforts to be scaled-back and forgotten about. I interviewed John Armitt of the ODA last month and he suggested that the contracts for building were pretty much all tied up - there's not much room for further savings. On the legacy side, however, the contracts and plans are yet to be fully unveiled and there's much more room to swing the axe and scale back ambition.

A CLG bod I spoke to recently suggested this would be the wrong move. The Olympics themselves won't bring much reward - perhaps they will inspire children to take up sport (and the government are launching a school sports competition to capitalise on this enthusiasm) but how does that translate into something tangible, especially for Stratford?

Apparently, we need to look at the legacy project as part of a string of investments by the government and one that mustn't end in 2012.

Now it may be argued that the aim of regeneration in Stratford was overambitious, that there isn't the money to build a better standard of living in that area. But this should be done in public, and where this part of the project is squeezed, we should know. The focus must be more than just on the show, we need to keep an eye on the direct  legacy investment and, even more broadly, what else happens in Stratford. If you're involved in that, I'm all ears.

*There aren't