Legacy worry over London pool
The start of construction of the Aquatics Centre for the London Games three months ahead of schedule sounds just like the good news story London 2012 should be bragging about.
But the fact is that the issues surrounding the most hyped sporting venue for the London Games illustrate many of the problems that now dog it.
Yes, the Games will provide Londoners with some marvellous facilities, including Olympic-sized swimming pools.
But for the Aquatics Centre to be converted into use for the community after the Games, more money will have to be spent on it, another facility built next to it, and more money found for it.
The seductiveness of architect Zaha Hadid's design for the Aquatics Centre cannot be doubted.
It could be argued that such a design is worth all the money spent on it. The cost of it has risen from £73m to £303m, which includes £61m for a footbridge that will form part of the building's roof.
But the jury that selected the design in 2005 acknowledged there were problems with it and its legacy use.
Indeed the jury's report, which has now been revealed, said it had not been well thought out and a costly step had been missed in converting it from Olympic use to community use.
The conversion involves having an additional facility built next to the Aquatics Centre, providing a leisure pool with water slides and a health and fitness centre.
This will now be done after the Games and could cost as much as £40m.
Paul Brickell, the executive member for Olympic opportunities for Newham, told me that Newham is prepared to pay some £5.5m for this but it is not clear where the rest of the money might come from.
Many have argued that the use of Olympic facilities after the Games should have been worked out when the bid was made.
This is not an argument that John Armitt, the chairman of the Olympic development authority, entertains, as you can see from his video interview with me:
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Yet there are many now raising questions about a lack of legacy planning that, if not remedied in time, could mean London joining Games like Sydney, which produced a marvellous spectacle at the time, but had nothing to show after it.
Armitt's chief executive, David Higgins, in his recent evidence to the Public Accounts Committee, admitted such in relation to the Olympic village.
"There had been no detailed planning," said Higgins. "And we have spent the last 18 months making the planning more efficient, and getting more efficiency out of the existing site."
The problem is that while this planning was being carried out the housing market had started to collapse.
The Olympic village was meant to be converted into 4,200 apartments, this has now been scaled down to 3,300.
The builders delivering the project have not yet got the money from the banks, and the government may have to put in more money. And once built, the credit crunch may mean it will not be easy to sell the apartments after the Games. Initially most of them will probably have to be let out before they can be sold.
There is also much debate about the media centre. The plan is to have permanent structures converted into office use.
But now the debate is whether the media centre should not be just a temporary tent, which is rolled up after the Games are over. I understand that property experts have advised the Olympic development authority that this would be a more sensible and less risky option.
It is the credit crunch that has prompted much of this rethinking. In the process it has highlighted that a lot more needs to be done and done quickly if London 2012 is to provide a sustainable legacy.
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It is not the facilities that provide a legacy, sustainable or otherwise. It is the athletes whose exploits and heroics are etched in memory. Eventually it is the poor taxpayer who is burdened with an exorbinant bill for the folly of attempting to prove over two weeks that an obsence display of infrastructure prowess is the way to go. Does the common Londoner really need this legacy?
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London clearly needs a world class swimming venue, and this is it.
And the legacy is the conversion of a contaminated wasteland in East London into the largest urban park built in Europe in the last century. That is something to celebrate, and would only be achieved by something on the scale of the Olympics
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Does this article give any insight on anything not already in the public domain?
The Olympics are going to cost a fortune and when they are done who will use the facilities?
I never saw that one coming....thanks sports editor.
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As ever you've got the redevelopment issue, and this is being coupled with the Olympics.
Underinvestment by the local authorities and national government will now be overcompensated by huge costly "prestige projects" that the taxpayer will have the joy of paying off for decades to come.
It is important to have a major sporting event in the UK again, but as politicians love to sun themselves in the light of massive money projects (Wembley or Millenium Dome anyone?) tihs will turn into another white elephnat project.
When will the government ever learn (plan) to get these projects done on time and on budget?
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englandcomeon #5
Its not all Govt's fault, when you only have a few construction companies large enough to deal with a project this size, who secretly meet and decide to create artificially high bid prices, or worse massively under estimate to get the contract, and think its their chance to milk the bottomless State coffers for all their worth? All in the knowledge that they can get away with it, as the Govt won't want to cancel the 2012 Games due to rising costs, or any other major project they work on
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Why is it that simple minded people always feel it neccessary to 'bash Mihir's blogs'? - I suppose it makes you feel big and clever.
For what its worth I found the article very informative, thanks Mihir.
As someone who has lived in London for the majority of my life, most Londoners will want sustained benefit from the huge investment into the games, most of which is coming from their Council Tax contributions I might add.
Where sustainable benefit is not being achieved, it is very worrying. Especially when we have an opportunity to create facilities that will serve the public and professional athletes for many years to come.
I imagine the Olympics will be a once in a lifetime opportunity for the UK - lets get it right!!!
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Indeed, it may not all be the govt's fault but whatever the government "plans" goes horribly wrong on cost and usually on completion dates too.
International companies take on large scale projects and if they went horribly "off plan" they'd be going bust all the time, no it doesn't seem to matter what it is (computer systems, buildings etc etc) whatever it is it seems to go horribly horribly wrong.
It's just not planned thoroughly enough and the right penalty clauses put in place.
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I'm bored of the olympics already, i'm sure i'll feel worse paying for it for next 20 years through taxes.
I agree with prev blogger that if our government did not put in penalty clauses in contracts for rising costs/deadlines then we should light them up from the olympic flame.
I for one would like to see the plug pulled on it and let another country have it
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All this talk of the "credit crunch" affecting the sale of Olympic properties is a bit short-sighted. 2012 is 4 years away. I doubt the economic situation will be the same as it is now.
You do have to wonder though how something that was supposed to cost £73m suddenly now costs £303m. Did somebody "accidentally" forget to consider three quarters of the costs?
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And why is it a group of you continually slate mihir's blogs??
They are very informative, i would enjoy reading some of your attempts at sports journalism articles.
thanks mihir
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I am glad Mihir Bose knows that the housing market stagnancy and credit crunch will still be with us in four years time. He would seem to be more knowledgable than the Chancellor, the city and the banking sector themselves.
It is typically English of us to pick the negatives in what will be an historic moment in the nation's history.
Lets look to the positives. If the Dome can be turned into a viable going concern then anything can.
Lets rejoice in having the premier sporting event in the world in our capital. To have every building turned into a going concern after the games is asking alot.
You never know, another house price boom in three years and those flats could be sold at a premium. No doubt if this did happen those involved will be portrayed as being lucky, whilst those who didn't see the price rise in steel are being branded as being short-sighted. Mihir if you can predict the economic future why did you not warn us the Chinese and Indians would push the steel prices so high?
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What I want to know is why the government is so inept at getting a budget right and why do they let costs spiral out of control. This goes back to the Millenium Dome, the Scottish parliament, Wembley...
I want a breakdown on what costs go in to say the building of a footbridge at 61million pounds! - sorry that is just ridiculous and it is almost the same as the original cost of the entire swimming pool complex.
The government/ locog is a)useless at hiring people to give it a realistic costing of the facilities, b) obviously has no control over the contrators who push budgets skyward, c) should have a fining system for contractors when they cannot come in on budget c) seems to have no control over their finances
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When we won the Olympics I was as the then Chief Executive of the G B Diving Federation, overjoyed, it was the only opportunity we would ever get to repair the decades of non investement in sporting infrastructure in London (except football).
Especially in my sport, diving, we had seen a rapid and near terminal decline in facilities where the public could acces the sport for fun and competitors could train.
The imediate emphasis on design over function was worrying, the concentration on just the main facilities more so.
The end result? There will be a very expensive main facility which we do desperately need, but at that price?? This will allow a select few to train to a high level in London,
In the 70's when I started in the sport there were 96 public swimming pools with diving in the Greater London area, when we won the 2012 games there were 9, now there are just 7. Post Olympics there will be 6.
But we have been told by the government, sport england and the asa that this isn't a problem........
Is this the great sporting legacy? When it does creat demand (which it will) where do we meet it. Even worse, the benficiaries are abroad where investment is being made in facilities for training as the pathetic 4 International standard facilities we have in the UK will not be able to offer training camps for diving to enough teams, they will go to France, belgium, Holland etc. The nearest high standard diving facility to London? Paris.
John
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It is nice that the pool will be ready soon...
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It makes me fear in a way the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow - lots of infrastructure being built for that too, but will it be used? Manchester showed the way in a sense, with the stadium being turned into a football ground, the velodrome producing a great cycling squad, the warm-up track being used for meets in the UK, the pool being used for short course swimming championships, etc. I hope London 2012 and Glasgow 2014 gives us a legacy - and by "us" I mean the whole of the UK, not just the South East.
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about time
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