February 2010 Archives

The Olympic Delivery Authority has unveiled fresh images today showing the completed cladding on the International Broadcast Centre, and the Main Press Centre reaching its full height.

You can see the latest images and a webcam at the below links Images: http://mm.gettyimages.com/mm/nicePath/locog?nav=pr133749623
MPC: http://www.london2012.com/plans/olympic-park/webcams/main-press-centre.php  
IBC: http://www.london2012.com/webcams/international-broadcast-centre.php  

The Mayor updated on the ongoing wrangling between Treasury and City Hall over who takes on the Olympic land and debt at mayoral question time, providing a further insight into the politics holding up agreement.

Boris suggested that the nub of the row was the need for cast-iron guarantees that Treasury did not take to great a control of the Olympic Park - something that I have already written about on several occasions.

My colleague Laura McBride has made a short film of current progress on the Olympics site.

Mayoral Question Time this morning has again promoted the idea of introducing Community Land Trust's at the Olympic Park.

The Trusts are non-profit making property trusts, popular in the US and Scandinavia, which aim to benefit the surrounding community by ensuring the long-term availability of affordable housing.

Andrew Boff asked the mayor whether he supported Baroness Ford's interest in the idea of installing a Community Land Trust at the Olympic Park.

The mayor was clearly supportive of the initiative but accepted Boff's warning that there was a danger that they could produce closed communities if managed poorly.

Johnson added: "We want to encourage CLTs for the community with a wide range of family housing and the rest of it."

The London Assembly has published a review today of the operation of the Olympic Park Legacy Company and included a series of recommendations.

The Assembly raises some important points and the document can be read here as well as written submissions from the key agencies here.

The principal concerns the Assembly has are firstly that the redevelopment of the Olympic site has not been inclusive enough of local people. It says Olympic chiefs need to improve the opportunities available for local people, both in terms of work opportunities and housing need.

It points out the quite dire statistic that currently only 4% of the construction workforce is made up of previously unemployed people from the local area and calls for the thousands of new homes built on the park to be suitable for, and available to, local people "not just wealthy people moving onto the park".

I've written a story in Estates Gazette this weekend about the wrangling between City Hall and central government that is causing delays to the land and debt deal crucial to the regeneration of the Olympic Park in Stratford, E15.
The story is published below. At City Hall recently Boris told EG to tell the OPLC he was "keeping the line". I'm pretty sure this is what he was referring to.
Delays to the agreement on who will control the park and take responsibility for the £800m Olympic debt pile after the 2012 Games was unearthed by EG last month (30 January, p33). Money was believed to be the sticking point.

A colleague of mine, Laura McBride, has just been in a helicopter with Westfield taking pictures of the Olympics site in Stratford.

The pictures are quite spectacular:

Click here to see them on Flickr.

Drivers Jonas has put together a residential report focusing on how the Olympic Boroughs fared last year and it does not make for pretty reading. DJ writes that the "initial Olympics euphoria has been swept away by market realities" in Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Newham and Waltham Forest. The agent says sales of residential units in the boroughs plummeted to historic lows last year. In the year to May 2009, Newham recorded 90 transactions - down 68% on May 2008. Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest all saw transactions significantly down in 2009.

The Government Olympic Executive's London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games Annual Report has just been published. You can read it here if you don't have a copy.
It's clear that the property downturn continues to force the government to swallow big writedowns on the money it can expect to make back from the land bought to deliver the Games.
The report highlights a £150m reduction in expected receipts from development returns expected from London & Continental Railways 140-acre Stratford City site next to the Olympic Village in east London. It's no wonder it's taking the ODA so long to reach an agreement with LCR over how the site is taken forward.

Julian over at the games monitor site has been at it again.

Here he is "debunking" the ODA's claim that the Olympics Park is the largest in Europe for 150 years via a Freedom of Information request.

All good reading.

The Telegraph has taken on a story this morning that has been brewing for a while and was first broken by Joey at Building.
The Telegraph writes that the ODA and the Olympic Executive's Quarterly Update this lunchtime will reveal that the government is again calling on contingency funds to cover the previously undeclared costs of maintaining and running the Olympic Park between its completion and the start of the Games.

The London Assembly has raised concerns about what it calls "uncertainties in the Mayor's budget proposals".
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Unsurprisingly, its biggest concern is the lack of a settlement between government and the London Development Agency over the transfer of the Olympic Park land to the Olympic Park Legacy Company.

The Assembly writes of the last-minute postponement of a settlement two weeks ago: "In advance of the conclusion of negotiations between the Mayor and government, it is unclear what the impact on the LDA's budget plans will be - for example, in the event that the LDA receives less than the £500m it hoped for, or if the profile of payments from government defers more funding to future years than has been assumed.

I've written a story this week in Estates Gazette on well-known property entrepreneur David Pearl and two media specialists taking an early punt on the 2012 Olympics broadcast centre becoming a long-term hub for the media.

The partners have teamed up to create a creative industries complex close to the broadcast centre.

Pearl is working with David Brady, an entrepreneur with stakes in a range of post production media companies who is known for his post-production TV work with chefs James Martin and Anthony Worrall Thompson, and audio engineer Dan Gable.

Before heading to Fish Island last night to meet the Olympic Park Legacy Company I was over at City Hall attending a meet and greet with the mayor.
I mention this because when Boris learnt of the meeting with the OPLC he enigmatically replied tell them I have met government today and "I am keeping the line" and winked.
I can only assume this relates to the troubled negotiations between the LDA and Treasury over who takes over the assembled land and associated debt. But answers on a postcard please if anyone else has a view.

A meeting with the Olympic Park Legacy Company last night provided on a micro level a good summation of the challenges the new vehicle will face in regenerating vast parts of east London.
The evening began with an assorted crew of journalists whingeing in unison about having to hike it all the way over to Fish Island for the meeting - despite the venue being Forman's restaurant and the food being very good.
It all highlights how the job in particular of landing a significant anchor tenant at the Olympics IBC/MPC centre in Hackney Wick post-Games is not going to be easy and, in fairness, no one at the OPLC has ever suggested it will be.

I'm off to meet the Olympic Park Legacy Company tonight along with several other journalists who are following the story of how the 2012 Games regenerates east London.
It should be a good chance to ask some key questions as a lot remains unresolved about the OPLC just now - not least how it begins to interact with the private sector while the LDA and government remain unable to reach agreement over who owns the Olympic land and associated debt.
Certainly property people I speak to are worried that the vehicle is being destabilised at a crucial stage by the faltering negotiations - and the longer the stand-off continues the closer we get to a General Election and the possibility of major changes in how the project is taken forward.