|
|
 |
The latest employment and skills figures for the Olympic Park and employment figures for the Olympic Village have been published by the Olympic Delivery Authority.A total of 9,164 people were working on the Olympic Park and Olympic Village (as of December 2009), 2,887 of whom were working on the Village site.
Twenty per cent of the Olympic Park workers live in the five Host Boroughs – Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest and Greenwich – and more than half live in London. This exceeds the ODA’s target of Host Borough residents making up at least 15 per cent of the construction workforce.
ODA Chairman John Armitt said: ‘The “big build” workforce is continuing to grow as we enter our toughest year. We are meeting our commitments to ensure employment and training opportunities for people living around the Olympic Park. The project remains on track and that is testament to the skill, professionalism and hard work of every single member of the workforce.’ Almost 2,500 trainees have passed through the National Skills Academy at the Plant Training Centre at Royal Docks and Thames House Training Centre in Newham. These facilities aim to help local people access work on the Park and other construction sites. The ODA also published a document ‘Park people’, which includes examples of people working on the Park.
P Elliott , the Irish based property company,has won a contract to build a block of the £1 billion Athletes Village. Developer Lend Lease will build five of the Village’s 11 plots, Ardmore is building N2, and John Sisk and Son will build N9 and N10. P Elliott works on building and property development projects across the commercial, industrial, retail, leisure and public sectors. It had a turnover of €310million in 2006. Construction work on the Village is on track with the first plot structurally complete and work well underway on all other residential plots. After the Games, all 11 buildings will be converted into residential apartments.
The Olympic Delivery Authority reports this week that the total workforce building the Olympic Park is 4,101 with one half of 2012 construction workers living in London.Nearly one in ten of the workforce were previously unemployed and nearly one in ten is a trainee, apprentice or on a work placement.
Approximately one in five (20%) are resident in the five Host Boroughs, Greenwich, Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest and over half live in London (53 per cent); Olympic Delivery Authority chief executive David Higgins said: "Numbers are ramping up sharply across the site and there is not a trace of complacency across the project about the challenges ahead....We are hitting our milestones and have put in place strong foundations but there is a big challenge ahead."
The process has begun to lift the roof of the Zaha Hadid-designed 2012 Olympic aquatics centre into place. The sweeping, wave-shaped roof to the aquatics centre designed by Iraqi-born architect Zaha Hadid, will mark the gateway to the Olympic Park in Stratford, east London.
Originally estimated to cost £73 million, it is now estimated to come in at £251 million, despite the stingray-shaped roof being scaled down and redesigned amid cost fears. A bridge connecting the roof to the main park will cost another £61 million. Sebastian Coe, chairman of the London 2012 Organizing Committee said"The design of the roof is iconic and will be one of the lasting images of the London 2012 Games" The 160-meter long column-free roof is made up of steel, aluminum covering and timber cladding and will rest on two concrete supports at one end and a supporting wall at the other.The 17,500 seat center will host swimming, diving and water polo during the Games, but will be reduced to 2,500 seats afterwards. "The Aquatics Center is on track to be a fantastic gateway to the Games," said David Higgins, chief executive of the Olympic Delivery Authority."The lift of the sweeping wave-shaped roof is one of the toughest construction and engineering challenges on the Olympic Park and will showcase the world class expertise involved in delivering the venues and infrastructure for London 2012."
Sport secretary Tessa Jowell has admitted that the £1billion Olympic village may possibly have to be completely funded with public money.
Jowell told the Commons Culture Committe said: “At the moment there is no private sector contribution, but we haven't given up on securing a deal. There's three-and-a-half years to go before the Olympics… in two or two-and-a-half years there might be a better situation to get funding.”
Asked by culture committee chairman John Whittingdale if there was a possibility the economy would not improve in time and no private cash would be raised at all for the two projects, she said: "Of course there is a possibility but that doesn't mean that we will give up on the possibility that there is private sector or investment from another source beyond government." She said talks on both IBC and Village were ongoing and the 2012 organisers were "fortunate we have substantial contingency". The planned Olympic village has already been cut in size from 4,600 to 2,800 flats, following a fall in property prices, with plans for tower blocks scrapped in favour of more modest, low rise developments. Plans to sell off the part of the village as expensive luxury apartments when the games have finished had to be modified, the committee was told, but the "athlete experience" would actually be better as a result.
David Ross, the co-founder of British mobile phone retailer Carphone Warehouse has resigned from the committee organising the 2012 London Olympic Games following his breach of share disclosure rules.
Ross also quit as chairman of British bus and train operator National Express Group Plc. Mr Ross stepped down as director of Carphone Warehouse, which he co-founded, after it emerged that he had used millions of pounds worth of shares as collateral against personal loans without informing the company's other directors - a potential breach of City rules. Ross said in a statement"Given the present circumstances, and while they are not connected to the Olympics, I must now devote my full attention to my private business interests..."I also do not wish to distract others from the important work still to do in making 2012 the success I know it will be." London Mayor Boris Johnson said he had reluctantly accepted the resignation.
Olympics boss Jacques Rogge has told the BBC that London 2012's main stadium does not need an athletics legacy. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) chief said the main concern for London 2012's organisers should be to avoid leaving behind "white elephants". "If the best solution is to transform the track into something else then we would be in favour of that," he said. This would seem to mark a shift in IOC policy and open the door for a football club moving to the Stratford venue. It had previously been believed the Lausanne-based organisation wanted London 2012's organising committee (Locog) to keep its bid promise about having athletics at the heart of its post-Games plans for the stadium. Rogge's comments will please London Mayor Boris Johnson, who has voiced concerns about the long-term viability of the 2012 venues, but disappoint Locog chairman Sebastian Coe and UK Athletics (UKA), who both wanted the Stratford site to become a focal point for British athletics.
Continuing are Olympics 2012 bidding theme for the week, the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) has shortlisted five firms to build a whitewater canoeing centre for the 2012 Olympic Game
The Broxbourne venue will host the canoe/kayak slalom events during the LondonGames, and will become a sporting and leisure facility for canoeing and whitewater rafting afterwards. The shortlisted firms are Balfour Beatty, Carillion, Edmund Nuttall, Fitzpatrick and Morrison. The contract includes all land formation, construction of the facility and course, and surrounding landscaping works. David Higgins, the ODA chief executive, said: “Securing such a strong shortlist of leading contractors is an important step towards delivering first-class facilities for the world's best athletes in 2012 and leaving the lasting legacy of a major leisure attraction for many years to come.”
 Chris Hoy, the triple Olympic champion, yesterday gave his seal of approval to the design for the velodrome in which Britain’s cyclists will be going for gold in 2012.Work on the development, which will have a “floating” roof and a glazed concourse, is due to begin next year. The venue, at the north of the Olympic Park, will also include a 400-metre BMX circuit and will be linked to cycle routes across the capital. After the Games, the facilities at the site will be enhanced to include a one-mile road circuit and a 6km mountain bike course.
The building has been designed by Hopkins Architects, who say it is intended to be lightweight and efficient, reflecting the workings of a bicycle. The venue will also be linked to cycle routes across the capital.The £80 million budget, one of the Olympic Park's largest. Speaking today Hoy said "To have been involved in the London Velopark is a great honour for me, and I am incredibly excited after looking at the designs and having now gone to the site itself to get a feel for the place...This is a golden era for cycling, and we are going to have this facility, which will be a jewel in the crown,the best in the world...I feel very fortunate I am going to ride in it and to be a part of it.
 A shortlist of Five contractors has been announced to construct the Olympic rowing and flatwater canoeing venue at Dorney Lake in Windsor, Berkshire.
They are: Carillion,Morrison,Edmund Nuttall,Norwest Holst and Balfour Beatty. Part of the work will include the installation of a 50m-span bridge over a widened entrance to the warm-up lake for two-way vehicular traffic and segregated pedestrian traffic The contract for the Eton Dorney enhancement works is due to be awarded in early 2009, with work starting on site later in the year.The site at present comprises a 2,200m, eight-lane rowing lake, warm-up lakes and associated competition facilities. David Higgins, chief executive of the Olympic Delivery Authority, said: “Eton Dorney is a first-class venue and the enhancements we are delivering will create the best possible facilities for the world's best athletes to use in 2012..Securing a selection of leading contractors is an important step towards delivering these essential works.”
Olympics minister Tessa Jowell has warned that no extra money will be spent on Olympic Park and other preparations for 2012 beyond the £9.3bn already allocated. Speaking to the BBC, she said that any overspending on projects for the London Olympics would be balanced by scaling back in other areas. Rumours are rife that these cutbacks will affect other aspects of the 2012 games. Will the Chuckle Brothers be responsible for the opeining ceremony? Will all the medals from Beijing be smelted down to produce much smaller medals for all winners next year? Will 2012 bring in a new event of brick laying and plastering?
Speculation is rife amoungst the media world as it is thought that The Olympic Delivery Authority is to revise plans for the £400m Olympic media centre after it emerged that the original design could run up to £90m over budget.
The media centre is the latest venue to hit budget problems. Cost overruns have already occurred at the Olympic stadium and Zaha Hadid’s aquatics centre, which will cost £303m rather than £77m.
A source close to the media centre said contractor Carillion, regeneration developer Igloo and the ODA were involved in “intensive technical work to value-engineer the cost of the building”. The source added: “If it were built as envisaged, it could be about £80-90m over.” The revisions could mean that parts of the building, which is to hold 20,000 journalists, become temporary structures.A spokesperson for the ODA on the media centre said: “This is speculation. We’re going through standard design processes on the media centre as we have with all venues. It has always been the intention that there would be some temporary elements and the exact nature of this is currently being finalised.”
The Mayor of London’s Olympics watchdog has announced that the cost of the Olympic venues have risen by more than £100m since November.Budgets have risen by £106m in the last eight months, according to a report byCarphone Warehouse founder David Ross. He cites the example of the Olympic Stadium, whose budget has risen by £29m, from £496m to £525m. But Ross adds that savings achieved and forecast elsewhere on the Olympic programme means that the overall budget has risen by only £16m. Ross was commissioned by Boris Johnson last month to review London’s preparations for the Games. He interviewed senior personnel within the ODA, LOCOG, LDA and the Government Olympic Executive. Question have been raised over the The Olympic Village, which is currently the subject of funding negotiations between the ODA and developer Lend Lease. Lend Lease, it says, is having difficulty in securing private finance and in determining how much it will need to make the project viable. The report said: “Significant additional public sector funding is likely to be required to deliver the project”. At the moment, the Village’s £800m budget is broken down to £550m payable by the ODA, with a £250m payable by Lend Lease. Ross said Lend Lease’s ability to recover that £250m is at “major risk”. Ross is critical of the project’s security preparations, saying that it is “significantly behind” the rest of the scheme...It said: “There will be significant cost implications if security considerations have to be built in to the Olympic facilities/logistics at a late stage.” Responding to the report London Mayor Boris Johnson today praised the progress that had been made on building the Olympic Park but said that greater transparency and openness were needed in the budget and forecasting for the 2012 Games and that pressure should be sustained to contain costs that are rising due to the global economic downturn.
The budget for the 2012 Olympic Games has been slammed by a government spending watchdog.A report by the government’s public accounts committee (PAC) also said that the ODA should not shy away from getting rid of unruly contractors. The report said the government’s original estimates for the Games were too low, and that it failed to take into account the extent of public-sector spending. The original budget for the games was set at £4bn, but the bill has jumped to £9.3bn in the three years since then. The PAC's report describes the original estimate as unrealistic, and yesterday its chairman, Edward Leigh, said ministers and officials had underestimated the true cost in order to win government and public support for the bid. "It is now clear that the estimated cost at the time of the bid, just over £4bn, was entirely unrealistic," said Leigh. "It ignored foreseeable major factors such as contingency provision, tax obligations, and policing and wider security requirements. At the same time, the estimate of the extent to which the private sector would contribute funding towards the games has proved little more than wishful thinking. "We don't know whether it was deliberate or not but it seems extraordinary that foreseeable costs were left out of the budget," he said. "I believe that at the very best they were economical with the actualité, as a minister once put it, in order to win support for the bid. Parliament and the public were undoubtedly misled over the true costs of the Olympic project." The committee's verdict is an embarrassment to Olympics minister Tessa Jowell and Ken Livingstone, the London mayor, the two most senior figures responsible for drafting the original budget who remain in office. Jowell last night denied that the government had intended to mislead parliament. "I utterly refute any suggestion that there was an intention to mislead and I hope that the country, parliament and the PAC would accept that was not the aim. There was categorically no motive to put in a bid that was anything other than based on the most accurate forecasts and the best intentions." She said Olympic bidding rules had required bids to be submitted at 2004 dollar prices, and that the security budget had been substantially affected by the July 7 2005 London bombings, which took place the day after London won the games. She added that 75p in every £1 spent on the site was aiding regeneration in east London, and that significant private-sector funding had been attracted by the Olympics.
Construction of London's 2012 Olympic Stadium is to start three months ahead of schedule, the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) said on Tuesday.
An ODA spokesperson confirmed that as work clearing the site had been completed earlier than expected; building work would be pushed forward to start in May. "We have investigated the Olympic Stadium site, demolished tens of buildings and excavated 800,000 tonnes of soil," ODA chairman John Armitt said."Now that we have finished the work to dig the bowl, where the opening and closing ceremony and athletics will take place in 2012, we are firmly on track to start construction work ahead of schedule."
The stadium, which will cost 496 million pounds, will be the focal point of the Olympic Park which is being built on former industrial land in east London.The 2.5-square-km park will also house the Aquatics Centre, theVelodrome, the hockey, fencing, basketball and handball arenas and the international media centre.
After the Games the stadium will be scaled back to 25,000 seats. It will retain a permanent athletics track, although no long-term tenant has yet been found.
The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) has unveiled the designs for the main stadium of the 2012 London Olympics and Paralympics. Designed by HOK Sport's the ‘stadium bowl’ will hold 25,000 permanent seats, surrounded by 55,000 demountable seats that will taken away after the Games.
After the Games, it will be transformed into a 25,000 capacity Athletics stadium and will host a variety of sporting, educational, cultural and community events. It will be a sustainable and vibrant facility, attracting other businesses and investment and acting as a hub for the communities living in and around the Olympic Park.
The main features of the design are:
- Bowl - a sunken bowl built into the ground for the field of play and lower permanent seating, designed to bring spectators close to the action;
- Seats – 25,000 permanent, 55,000 demountable;
- Roof - a cable supported roof will stretch 28 metres the whole way around the Stadium, providing cover for two thirds of spectators;
- Wrap – a fabric curtain will wrap around the stadium structure, acting as additional protection and shelter for spectators; and
- Pods – facilities such as catering and merchandising will be grouped into self-contained ‘pod’ structures, adding to the spectator experience around the access level of the Stadium.
Chair of the London 2012 Organising Committee Seb Coe said:
'We talk a lot about milestones, but few will be more exciting than this, the unveiling of the Olympic Stadium, which will be the centre piece of our Olympic Park. The stadium will stand for everything we talked about in the bid: it will be inspiring, innovative and sustainable – the theatre within which the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games will be played out and leaving behind top class sporting and community facilities after the Games."
Formal planning permission has been granted for the Olympic Delivery Authority to construct the venues for the London 2012 Games.The ODA submitted two planning applications totalling 10,000 pages in February 2007 setting out plans for new sporting venues, infrastructure and open space within the Olympic Park in Stratford, east London.
The decision recognises the substantial long-term benefits that the Games will deliver to the local area, including the creation of an open, accessible Park with new networks of bridges, footpaths and cycleways.
Chief Executive of the ODA David Higgins, said: ’Receiving planning permission is a huge step forward. The recognition of the regeneration value of our plans gives us continued momentum as we continue work to create a world-class Olympic Park for Games and legacy.
‘With planning permission for the Olympic Park secured, we will continue consultation on detailed planning applications for individual venues and on the legacy master plan, so there will continue to be opportunities for people to comment on the plans for the future Olympic and legacy Park.’
Click here to find all the planning applications.
The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) gave almost 2,000 members of the public a guided tour of the 2012 Olympic Park over the weekend. As part of London’s ‘Open House’ architectural festival, the ODA opened up the Olympic Park for the first time, offering the public the opportunity to see the work currently underway cleaning and clearing the site for the start of construction of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic venues and parklands next summer.
David Higgins, ODA Chief Executive, said:
“Open House has given us a fantastic opportunity to open up the Olympic Park to the public, offering them the chance to see how this area of east London is being transformed, both for 2012 and long after.
“This is a hugely challenging project – twice the size of Terminal 5 in just half of the time – and we have made a strong start. The work to clear and clean the majority of the site by Beijing 2008 is well underway and the tours over the weekend allowed people to judge the progress that is being made.
“There was an overwhelmingly positive response from the public and we look forward to doing a similar event next year.”
The tours started in the north at the old Eton Manor sports ground which is now the main offices for the site and began with an overview of the Velopark area. The public were then driven through the centre of the Park, past the main venues and the tour concluded at the Olympic Stadium site, where there they could see the demolition and archaeological work that is on-going.
Building Magazine reports that Newham Council and the Olympic Delivery Authority have approved Westfield's development next to the London 2012 site. Stratford City, one of the largest regeneration projects in London, has been given the go ahead by the Olympic Delivery Authority and Newham Council. The retail-led development, for client Westfield, is adjacent to the London 2012 Olympic site. The scheme, which will also have a residential element, does not include the Olympic Village. This part of the scheme was sold off by Westfield to the ODA last year. The development, which covers Stratford Town centre, will include 175,000 sq m of retail and leisure space, 106,000 sq m of office space, 34,800 sq m of hotel space as well as 1,224 residential apartments.
Westfield said carbon emissions on the scheme would be initially reduced by 25% against current benchmarks, moving to 50% by 2020 and up to 80% by 2050. The scheme hit the headlines in January after Building revealed that the homes on the scheme would not meet government targets for zero carbon homes by 2016. John Burton, development director at Westfield, said: “We now move to the next stage of the planning process with planners and stakeholders about the detailed design of all of the proposed buildings for Zone 1.” Work is expected to start on the scheme next year. It is expected to be open by 2011.
The contract to design a key cluster of venues and facilities in the north of the Olympic Park was put out to tender by the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) last week .A range of temporary and permanent sporting facilities will be built at Eton Manor, the site of a former community sports centre.
Disused since 2001, the site will be transformed to provide facilities for athletes training during the Olympic Games. It will also be the venue for Paralympic Archery and Paralympic Tennis.
After the Games the Eton Manor site will provide hockey facilities with 5,000 permanent seats, tennis facilities and other multi-purpose sports facilities. Demolition work has already begun on the site.
Together with the world-class VeloPark and the renovated Hackney marshes it will create a sporting hub in the north of the Olympic Park for the local community and elite athletes.
David Higgins, Chief Executive of the ODA, said: ‘The Eton Manor site is steeped in sporting history. We want to recapture this and regenerate the area with well designed, world-class facilities fit for the Olympic and Paralympic stage.
'The new facilities, along with the new bridges and new walking and cycling routes better linking them into the local community, will mean that London 2012 will leave a significant sporting legacy in the north of the Olympic Park for generations to come.’
The Eton Manor design contract has been posted on the ODA’s e-tendering website and the design contract is expected to be awarded early next year.
|
|
