Preparations for the London 2012 Olympic Games Feb 2012 report

Summary

The Olympic Delivery Authority’s programme is on track and within budget. The Delivery Authority’s management of its building programme has been exemplary. However, due mainly to significant increases in the cost of venue security, the likelihood of staying within the overall £9.3 billion Public Sector Funding Package is very finely balanced once the Department’s own best estimates of the most likely costs are taken into account. The Funding Package of £9.3 billion allocated to the Olympics does not cover the totality of the costs to the public purse of delivering the Games and their legacy, which are already heading for around £11 billion.

5th April 2012

Re: The Olympic Delivery Authority’s (ODA) recent works on Leyton Marshes, close to London’s Olympic enclosure.

Dear Mr Hone, CEO of the ODA

I am writing to you in response to your recent letter addressed to “Dear Resident” in which you attempt to persuade local people that the ODA’s plan to construct a building on Leyton Marshes (classified as Metropolitan Open Space) is justifiable.

The New York Times published this piece, 'The Games Hurt London', as a contribution to its Room for Debate on the Olympics. For other contributions to the debate go to Are The Olympics More Trouble Than They Are Worth?

Cooeee, Jacques Rogge! You're in town again with your IOC chums and SebCo and all for another of your inspection thingies, yeah? In advance of tomorrow's

Asked if Westfield was concerned that some NOCs may be in danger of missing the boat, she responded: "There is a need for some pretty swift decisions."

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Peaceful Non-cooperation Halts Work on Olympic Site


Members of the Occupy Movement have set up camp, on Porters Field, part of Leyton Marshes in East London, where against stiff local opposition planning planning permission was granted by Waltham Forest to construct a number of Olympic practice basketball courts.

Generations For Peace use sport to promote peace in conflict areas and run camps to help train young volunteers to use sport as a tool to achieve this.
The programme is supported by Samsung Electronics Levant, who share many of the same goals as Generations For Peace, such as innovation, quality, impact and sustainability.

Remember that slogan ‘Improving the Image of Construction’ which gets plastered over every new building site in the country? Back in September 2009 103 construction companies were fined £129.5m by the Office of Fair Trading following an investigation into collusion by companies on contract bidding, or price fixing, between 2000 and 2006. One of the offending companies was Olympics contractor John Sisk and Co, which is working on the Athletes’ Village and the Woolwich shooting range. In keeping with British soft touch regulation the fines for this offence were then dramatically reduced in March 2011 by the Competition Appeal Tribunal on the extraordinary grounds that this practice was "long-standing in the industry and widely regarded as legitimate"!