December 2009 Archives

There has been little festive cheer from the new Information Commissioner when it comes to the LDA and its £1bn Olympic land acquisition programme.

It emerged just before Christmas Day that Christopher Graham has threatened the LDA with contempt of court proceedings if it does not respond to a Freedom of Information request for details of how it went about buying the land for the Olympic Games.

The GLA's draft budget 2010-11, which was published for consultation last week, makes it crystal clear why the London Development Agency is so keen to shift its Olympic debt off of its balance sheet.

Quite simply the debt is enormous and in focusing on the attempts to transfer much of it to central government and the new Olympic Park Legacy Company the report contains one of the larger understatements I have read this year.

As promised, here are some up to date pictures of the Stratford City site, following a tour on Monday. As can be seen, cladding is already going on the M&S store and the curved mall through which the village and the stadium can be seen is taking shape.

Clearly I am straying off the beaten blog track with the following, but bear with me. The reason I write about it is I'm surprised it hasn't been in the press already. Maybe it has but I can't locate anything at present.
Word reaches me that the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG) is being given much food for thought by food standards lobbying group Compassion in World Farming.
Apparently when two weeks ago LOCOG published its Food Vision Paper for the 2012 Olympics aiming for the "best of British", it actually confirmed the Games will be serving athletes and visitors what the lobbyists claim is "the worst of British".

Westfield director John Burton took me on a tour of the Stratford City site yesterday morning (pictures of the tour will appear here later today) following a ride on the new high speed rail link into the site from St Pancras.
Since the last time I visited the £1.45bn mega mall a couple of months ago things have progressed quite dramatically.
A stroll around the site now gives a very real sense of where shops will be and the kind of views of the Olympic Park and the athletes village shoppers and tenants will have, and they are striking.

A fun snippet from the NLA's London 2012: Raising the bar for London's future development conference at Store Street this morning.
Kay Hughes, the Olympic Delivery Authority's project sponsor, said that among the design innovations being introduced at the park are a bridge and underlay the like of which I have not encountered before.
Apparently designer Jason Bruges has designed a bridge at the park that is 100m long.

I was in Store Street this morning listening to various members of the Olympic Delivery Authority speaking at an NLA conference on the development of the Olympics sites in legacy.
Various interesting things were discussed not least the fact that the ODA has this morning lodged its planning application for transforming the site from its operational form during the Games to how it will work after the Games in "legacy" mode.
I'll be writing a news story about this later today.
Pointedly David Higgins, the ODA's chief executive, on numerous occasions said that the government agency had from day one back in 2006 worked on a masterplan that looked at a post Olympics world firstly and then "shoved the Olympics on top of the Legacy".

My retail news correspondent colleague Annabel Dixon has written a good story in this Saturday's magazine about Westfield's success just now in securing new retailers at the Olympics site.

I've asked her to do a guest blog here about it all - so you read it here first:

Annabel writes: Speculation has been mounting recently over who will be the first retailers to sign at Westfield's Stratford City shopping centre since John Lewis and Marks & Spencer were confirmed as anchor tenants back in 2006.

The Australian developer has been locked in leasing meetings at the recent round of industry conferences, including the BCSC conference in Manchester, and there are a growing number of tours of the site by retailers and their agents.

There is no doubt that the ruckus over service charges at Westfield London left a nasty taste in retailers' mouths. However, major brands, including US fashion brand Forever 21, budget fashion retailer Primark, health and beauty chain Boots, newsagents WHSmiths and high street fashion retailers H&M and Next, are all edging closer and closer to signing on the dotted line.

I've just revealed on EGi News that the government has appointed UK property veteran John McCready to run a new division driving value from its circa £320bn property portfolio.
McCready, a senior partner at Ernst & Young focusing on regeneration, is expected to be unveiled later today as the head of a new government Property Executive, which will sit within the Shareholder Executive.

Well there was plenty in the pre-Budget Report that relates to commercial property development, but not a stitch on the Olympic land and debt from what I can see.

No, I've been through it with a fine tooth comb and I can't see a thing.

There will be some disappointed parties. Talks continue ...

Very important news for the legacy element of the Olympics is expected today.

The Pre-Budget Report is expected to include confirmation that DCLG has agreed to take on the vast majority of the £800m LDA Olympic land acquisition budget and in doing so let loose the new Olympic Park Legacy Company to do business unsaddled by massive debt. I will be updating.

Separately of interest, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport Committee is to carry out an inquiry into the preparations for securing a lasting legacy from the 2012 Games.

In a Parliamentary announcement yesterday the DCMS said the Committee was seeking views on:

There is a lot emerging at the moment about who controls what and what can be developed around and on the Olympics sites, and I will be writing a lot about this next week in Estates Gazette and on the blog. These are definitely interesting times.
One interesting snippet from a very well placed source that can be related now, however, is historic but still may have longer-term implications.
I revealed in EG back in November of 2008 that Transport for London was being lined up as a long-term occupier of Westfield's Stratford City for 250,000 sq ft of offices as part of proposals to locate much of the Olympics media centre to the site during the 2012 Games.

Matters are coming to ahead over who ultimately controls the key Olympics sites after the Games.
It's all quite difficult to navigate at present but here is what I understand to be the current situation.
There is some expectation that Chancellor Alistair Darling will confirm in Wednesday's Pre-Budget Report that central government will take on the debt the LDA accumulated buying up land and relocating businesses to make way for the Olympics Park and Stratford City.
That said, today a Treasury spokesman said to me that no deal had been done and LDA chief executive Sir Peter Rogers told the London Assembly's Economic Development, Culture, Sport and Tourism Committee yesterday that negotiations continued over the details of the Olympic land and debt transfer.
Those details are closely guarded but it is understood that the Department of Communities and Local Government is to take on the rump of the debt.

There has been an upturn in development activity on the peripheries of the Olympics sites this week - further evidence that the gold in them east London hills is sparkling again.

Tesco has this week lodged its plans for a mixed-use development in the centre of Bromley-by-Bow, just behind the LDA's Three Mills Studios and close to the Pudding Mill Lane end of east London's 2012 Olympics Park.

The ColladoCollins-designed scheme will replace the existing Tesco superstore by the A12 with a new district centre including a hotel, Idea Store community library, 403 houses and 18 shops and cafes anchored by an 80,000 sq ft Tesco superstore.

Another week passes and still no update on who will take control of the land and associated debt at the key Olympics sites.
Word reaches me that there is disharmony over the athletes village and the Olympic Delivery Authority's likely position.
While the Olympic Park Legacy Company would like to have significant control over the 1,400-home private element and how it is sold on post Games, the ODA is thinking again about transferring its landholdings across to the Special Purpose Vehicle.