Olympics

Costs
Story so far The original Olympics budget of £2.4 billion has been bumped up to a whopping £9.3bn. The spiralling cost has seen more hikes than Paris Hilton’s hemline and, by the end of last year, it became clear that the discrepancy in costs was more than an accounting blip. Jack Lemley, who quit his £1,000-a-day post as chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) claimed that costs were soaring on an ‘exponential basis’. By March 2007, when Tessa Jowell announced the revised budget, it stood at nearly four times the original estimate.
Separate from this budget is the cost of actually staging the Games, which stands at £2bn. This will be raised from the private sector by the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG), which will raise the money through commercial partners, broadcast rights, ticketing and merchandising.

Employment generated by the Games

Future goals To keep in the black. One of the main concerns for Londoners is that they will have to fork out extra council tax to pay for any further rises in costs. ‘It is a possibility that costs will rise,’ says Dr William Jennings, an expert in risk management at the London School of Economics. ‘If that happens, the costs will come from Londoners’ council tax, or will be incorporated into national taxes. Given the repercussions of a politician announcing it will fall to Londoners, it’s more likely it will be paid for nationally, but whatever happens we will end up paying.’

Arts, heritage, sports and charity campaigners have also expressed dismay that the public sector funding package for London 2012 includes an additional £675m diversion from the Lottery from 2009. The Lottery was originally expected to contribute £1.5bn, but that figure rose to £2.2bn to deal with a black hole in the government's original calculations.

And, despite a recent glowing report from the IOC when it visited London, there is still a possibility that work on key venues may not be done according to timetable, requiring extra payments to contractors to hire more labour – as happened in Athens. Other issues, such as the doubling in steel prices since London won the Games are simply out of the organisers’ control.

Rating 4/10 Must try harder– unless London wants to set its own Olympic record of going bankrupt before the Games has even begun.

Transport
Story so far More than £17bn will be invested in transport over the next five years to get it up to scratch. However, work on one of the biggest transport schemes was already underway before London won the bid: the High Speed 1 (HS1) – formerly the Channel Tunnel Rail Link – from St Pancras, which opens in November. Upgrades have already begun on the Jubilee Line and DLR , as well as the nine railway lines which will serve the Olympic Park. In August, work begins on a £104m upgrade of Stratford Regional station.

Future goals More than 55,000 athletes, officials and media, 500,000 spectators and 120,000 staff and volunteers will be travelling to the Games each day and the emphasis is on the use of public transport rather than cars to get them there – no parking is permitted anywhere near the main venues and each spectator ticket will allow free travel on all trains, tubes and buses on the day of the event.

Many visitors will use the 140mph Javelin train, which can whisk spectators from central London to the Olympic Park in just seven minutes and from Ebbsfleet in 10 minutes. The Javelin goes into passenger service in 2009. The Olympic Park will be served by three main stations, Stratford International, Stratford Regional and West Ham. The aim is to have a train stop every 15 seconds at one of these three stations.
However, in a recent report, the London Assembly said that eight out of ten of London’s main tourist sites will be inaccessible for the disabled by 2012. London Underground has said that by 2010, 25 per cent of stations will be accessible for disabled travellers.

Rating 7/10 Promising. However, the LSE’s Dr Jennings warns that, despite the impetus the Olympics has given to transport plans, there is a danger in fixing transport deadlines to large projects. ‘One of the reasons the Jubilee Line to the Millennium Dome ran £1.2bn over budget because of contractual disputes. Transport has to be in place on time, there is no leeway, which means the government could be forced to pay over the odds if problems with contractors emerge,’ he says.

Jobs
Story so far Up to 50,000 new jobs in the Lower Lea Valley area, have been promised by the London Development Agency (LDA) as part of the regeneration initiative. In June, Ken Livingstone announced an £11m package to fund skills training, employment advice and work placements with organisations such as Centrepoint and the Prince’s Trust. New coaches, cooks and builders needed for the Games are also expected to be trained through these projects.

Of the 208 east London businesses who must relocate, 193 will have moved out by the end of July, with the majority having secured, or about to secure new sites. Due to the pace of construction, the rest can remain until 2009. According to the LDA, 98 per cent of jobs have been secured. However, some of the businesses yet to find alternative sites are concerned they could soon go bust unless new locations are found. Of the 425 local residents who are being relocated from the Clays Lane estate, most have been moved. The remaining 15 residents will have left by the final cut-off date of July 23. However, there are concerns that many of the former residents are now paying double the rent for their new homes. Sites have also been found for the groups of Roma and travellers based at Clays Lane and Waterden Road, despite ongoing opposition from the groups claiming some of these sites are unsuitable for this purpose.

Future goals The main challenges are to ensure that jobs go to local people and that they are not just temporary. The LDA says that of the 677 people on site at present, 24 per cent are resident in the five Olympic boroughs. It is presently looking into ‘aspirational targets’ for local employment. However, a London Assembly report in March warned there was a danger that local people would not be employed in new jobs unless more improved their language skills, and warned that previous Olympic cities had struggled to achieve a long-term employment legacy.
Rating 5/10 Hard to quantify at this stage, but it will be a real achievement if the Games’ ambitions to create sustainable employment in the region are even partly achieved.

Participation and inspiration
Story so far The Games are intended to help the nation become more physically active by accelerating the delivery of high-quality sports facilities, leaving a legacy that will inspire a new generation to take up sport, and boosting the ‘wow’ factor by attracting high-profile events. In addition, an extensive volunteering programme is underway to encourage people to develop skills that will benefit others.

The 2012 Roadshow is already touring the UK, taking in 27 stops before its conclusion next month and offering taster sessions in a range of sports and information on local clubs and facilities. The emphasis is on a UK-wide Games, not one just for London.

A policy of attracting high-profile international events to London is also underway. After this year’s Tour De France, Eton Dorney (rowing) and the O2 Arena (gymnastics) will host World Championships.

More than 50,000 Londoners have enjoyed free, coached taster sessions in a range of sports at 300 events across every London borough. The five host boroughs are organising extensive participation projects. For example, more than 20 local clubs were involved in a ‘Come and Try’ week in Waltham Forest, and Newham’s ‘Game ON 07’ offered free activities for young disabled people and their families.

The Olympic Opportunity Fund has devoted £11m to a range of projects across London that use sport and the 2012 Games to engage communities experiencing high levels of unemployment, such as funding for 150 disabled people to become qualified sports coaches by July 2008.

In partnership with other agencies, there has been a renewed emphasis on PE in schools. The 2005-06 School Sport Survey of more than 16,800 schools showed that 80 per cent of pupils now take part in at least two hours of high-quality PE and sport each week, exceeding the 75 per cent target set for 2006.

Minority Olympic sports, such as handball and volleyball, have moved quickly to establish talent identification programmes in tandem with local clubs.

Pre-Volunteer Programme pilot schemes have helped more than 500 people develop the skills needed to be 2012 volunteers.

Future goals There is an ongoing need to capitalise on the focus provided by the 2012 Games in order to meet Sport England’s commitment to raise participation rates by one per cent per year (as outlined in its 2004 ‘Framework for Sport in England’). The aim is to ‘make England the most active and successful sporting nation in the world by 2020’.

A £100m government campaign has been designed to increase levels of activity for all school-age children to five hours per week, with greater emphasison competition within and between schools. A new National School Sport Week, championed by Dame Kelly Holmes, will encourage schools to run sports days and inter-school tournaments. A network of 225 ‘competitive sport leaders’ will be set up to work with primary and secondary schools.

Up to 70,000 volunteers will be needed to work during the Games period. Although recruitment will not begin until January 2011, more than 100,000 individuals have registered their interest already. A by-product is to encourage people to become involved in other community volunteering projects. The Department for Education and Skills will launch a ‘Young Ambassadors’ programme to develop language and inter-personal skills among young people from deprived areas to enable them to serve as volunteers.

However, east London’s cyclists need placating. In return for giving up their long-established circuit near Leyton in November 2006, the Eastway Users’ Group was promised a 34-hectare legacy VeloPark with £22m of funding guaranteed, a replacement facility at Hog Hill in Hainault, and an interim venue in Docklands until Hog Hill was ready. Instead, the interim venue was not built, the planned April 2007 opening date for Hog Hill has come and gone, while the Velo- Park has been cut to a mere seven hectares. The ODA denies accusations that the legacy has been watered down.

Rating 7/10. Plenty of good local initiatives, but with 700,000 UK children classified as clinically obese – and that number is rising – Britain is still very far from being a nation of active participants inspired by 2012.

Security
Story so far According to the Home Office, the overall security budget is £600m, but this sum is ‘under continuing scrutiny’. A report by Bob Whalley, a former Home Office expert commissioned by the Metropolitan Police to investigate additional costs of the Games, acknowledges that while a terrorist attack remains the biggest security fear, there may also be the ‘expected vast growth in nearly every kind of crime to which the Olympics will give rise’.

The government has created a cabinet-level Olympic Security Directorate (OSD). Chaired by the Home Secretary, this is the ultimate authority responsible for security matters and comprises the most senior representatives from the UK security forces. LOCOG has a Security Directorate, headed by a director who also sits on the OSD.

Security has been embedded into the design of the Olympic Park venues from the outset. The site was sealed on July 2 2007 when roads, footpaths and waterways passing through were closed. One thousand magnetometers (metal detectors known as ‘mag and bag’) will further secure the Olympic Park. The Met’s new Special Operations Room, which opened in Lambeth in April 2007, was developed ‘with the Olympics in mind’, according to Commander Simon Foy. Designed to handle more than 500 public order events each year, its specialist equipment includes access to more than 10,000 CCTV cameras.

Future goals Many experts believe the security budget will double at least. The number of officers needed on duty each day is expected to be 4,000 to 5,500, plus specialists such as firearms, surveillance and intelligence officers.

A shortage of trained armed police officers may force the deployment of foreign security personnel. However, some members of the Metropolitan Police Authority have expressed concern. ‘The idea of being reliant on foreign police forces is very worrying and must be prevented at all costs,’ said MPA member Damian Hockney.

There are concerns about security and safety at events outside the Olympic Park. In June 2007, Dorset Police requested £21m from the Home Office to supervise the sailing events at Weymouth and Portland. Fears about access and crowd management at the canoeing course in Broxbourne have yet to be fully allayed. ‘As the plans for the venue are progressed, detailed safety and security plans will be developed in partnership with all the relevant emergency services and local authorities,’ said ODA director of transport Hugh Sumner.

Richard Bryan, the Met’s deputy assistant commissioner speaking at the Association of Chief Police Officers’ conference said: ‘The Games people are not privy to the environment that we are operating in. Decision-making is too slow and too convoluted.’ LOCOG declined to comment.

Rating 9/10. Security is the IOC’s top priority, and is being treated with due rigour. Observers believe a trouble-free Games will be worth whatever it costs – and that may be a lot.

The site
Story so far The planning application was submitted in February. It is one of the largest in European history – a 15-volume, 10,000-page document outlining one of the largest urban parks to be built in the past 150 years. The project is the equivalent of building two Heathrow Terminal 5s – in half the time, and with an absolute deadline for delivery.

Three-quarters of the Olympic Park site has been assessed, including surface and deep-level soil testing, and one-quarter has been cleared. Since April 2006, four boring machines have been preparing tunnels in which the cables carried by 52 overhead electricity pylons will be buried. The first phase was completed on time and to budget, with the pylons due to be brought down in late 2008.

An ‘E-Tendering’ service makes it easier for companies of all sizes to bid for contracts. More than 400 ODA contracts have already been awarded. Zaha Hadid’s designs for the Aquatic Centre were released last year, and Hopkins Architects was recently chosen to design the Velopark by a panel including Olympic cycling champion Chris Hoy.

The ODA’s Sustainable Development Strategy sets out targets to make the Games the greenest yet. These include reducing the event’s carbon footprint by 50 per cent, reusing 90 per cent of demolition material, reducing water usage in venues by 40 per cent and ensuring 50 per cent of construction materials are transported by water or rail.

Future goals The ODA has identified ten key milestones to be achieved by the start of the Beijing Games next summer. These include starting work on waterways regeneration; beginning construction of a ‘gateway’ bridge into the Olympic Park and the Olympic Village; and finalised designs for the four major venues (Olympic Stadium, Aquatic Centre, VeloPark and Media Centres). Beijing will mark the start of the next phase of work, named ‘Demolish, Dig, Design’.

Design teams are being sought for the temporary venues for basketball and fencing, followed later in 2007 by design team contracts for the hockey stadia and facilities at Eton Manor, Waltham Forest.

Rating 9/10 Nothing on the ground as yet but plenty happening under it. No obvious areas of concern.