March 2010 Archives

So here it is then.
The Mayor of London Boris Johnson and Lakshmi Mittal, Chairman and CEO of ArcelorMittal, today unveiled the artist and design chosen for a new visitor attraction in the Olympic Park that they claim will be the UK's largest sculpture.
Turner Prize winning artist Anish Kapoor will design the artwork to be called 'The ArcelorMittal Orbit'.

Confirmation that the Olympic Park Legacy Company is well and truly up and running.
Dorothy Fenwick, Baroness Ford's right-hand woman over the years in dealing with us press types and many other things, is leaving the OPLC today.
Fenwick was enlisted by Ford on an interim basis to help with the setting up of the OPLC and she has been a great point of contact for the media chasing news about what is happening.

Some significant developments for Stratford and the Olympics projects in the past few days.
Last Wednesday's Budget and Ian Smith's independently published review of the government's £270bn property portfolio contained a small but important concession for the area.
Smith recommends that where government departments successfully argue that they must stay close to central London then for the first time regeneration schemes in the South East will be considered for significant Whitehall relocations.
It makes sense. There are plenty of departments able to argue that a move to Newcastle or Manchester is just a step too far away from the corridors of power. A move to cheaper space 30 minutes a way on the train in Milton Keynes or Ebbsfleet is not so easy to justify.
Smith though refers to two specific locations in the report - the Thames Gateway and Stratford.

Just to say that I am reliably informed that the consultants appointed to handle the sale of the Olympic Stadium by OPLC are Jones Lang LaSalle and Eversheds.
A sub plot in the great Olympics regeneration story is the feast of work on offer for the property consultancy world around the Olympics. It is going to be interesting to see which companies are s the main beneficiaries.

Just been rifling through the initial tender document from the Olympic Park Legacy Company seeking expressions of interest in Stratford's 2012 stadium.
The first thing that is clear is the OPLC is willing to listen to all ideas and proposals. The stadium can be configured post Games to offer at least five design solutions ranging in size from the minimum requirement of a 25,000 seater to a 78,000 seater.
And the apparent sticking point of the athletics track is perhaps not the immovable object football fans think it is.

The Olympic Park Legacy Company is wasting no time pushing on with its drive to engage the private sector now that the Olympic land and debt agreement has been resolved.
I understand that within the hour, OPLC will launch its tender document seeking expressions of interest in the Olympic stadium after the Games.
Clearly West Ham United have been making the most noise about taking on the stadium recently, but I suspect a number of interesting offers will emerge in the coming weeks and I'll be trying my utmost to find these out. Will update when I receive details of the tender - clearly there will be some focus on how stringent the demand for an athletics track at the stadium will be, although it's unlikely there will be any dramatic changes here.

My colleagues Annabel Dixon and Laura Mcbride have been on a tour of Westfield's giant shopping centre development next to the Olympic Park site in Stratford.
John Burton, the Australian developer's director overseeing Stratford City was in upbeat mood and their interview with him is well worth a view: "We actually don't think we'll have enough space for the number of people that will want to be here," Burton says.
It's often pointed out that Stratford City would have happened without the Olympics and there is no doubt Westfield have a habit of making their projects complete whatever the difficulties - you only have to look over to Shepherds Bush to see this.
Still, the Olympics is proving fundamental in making the site one of the few major regeneration projects in the country to be able to regularly update on significant progress.

So the deal has been done and, from what I am picking up, all sides are pretty content with the end result.

It appears that since two weeks ago when there was significant concern about the time it was taking to reach agreement, the mayor, central government and the LDA have all made a concerted effort to get something over the line.

The timing was important. It was clearly good for the Olympic Park Legacy Company to be able to go to MIPIM, the annual property jamboree in Cannes, with an unfettered hand, ready for business with the private sector.

More importantly, the deal, in principle, has been signed off before all sides enter the purdah of a General Election period and the potential for a new administration and a new view on things.

So now I have had more of the details, who are the winners and losers?

It would appear that West Ham United's flirtation with a move to the Olympic Stadium has unlocked a significant east London development opportunity.

I have had a first press release through on the Olympic land and debt agreement from the Mayor's office now. A more detailed release from CLG will be sent out later I am assured - which would be helpful, as there are still some issues outstanding.
Not least among these is the fact that the press release talks of "heralding" rather than completing a major step forward in reaching agreement with the Government to "secure a lasting legacy for the 2012 Games".

I've just revealed on our web site that the Olympic land and debt deal that was proving so difficult to agree has been signed off.
I understand a detailed release and statement will be made later today by the mayor's office at which stage we shall see what sort of deal the LDA secured. Will keep you posted.
Here's the story:

The London Assembly were on bewilderingly disappointing form this morning as they quizzed the Olympic Park Legacy Company about the progress the body is making.
After a number of questions revisiting old ground about the Olympic Stadium [did the Assembly expect Baroness Ford and Andrew Altman to concede that the stadium should not be used for Athletics post Games?], the various other landowners at the site, and the £400,000 (?!) of extra financing the LDA has suggested the OPLC will need to transform the Park post Games - "it's actually £450m I'm afraid" a clearly bemused Margaret Ford pointed out - the crucial topic of when and if the Olympic Park site and associated £600m of debt would ever transfer to central government from the LDA's balance sheet was at last addressed.

The Olympic Park Legacy Company has launched an initiative to get young people involved in the design and development of the Olympic Park in Stratford.

The OPLC's Legacy Youth Panel is made up of 22 young local people aged between 13 and 21 who over the next five months will visit the Olympic site, tell planners what they would like to see as well as visiting local schools to see what children want to see on the park post Games.

Well there is nothing wrong with that. Clearly, young people in and around Stratford should be asked what they would like to see and I'm hopeful that a couple of the volunteers will guest blog here about their experiences - Andreas and Sarita, if you are reading!

Chief Executive of the Olympic Park Legacy Company, Andrew Altman, explains: "We want young people to feel a sense of ownership towards the Olympic Park because they will be the generation that will most experience the change to east London over the next 25 years.

"The Legacy Youth Panel is a fantastic opportunity to capture the imagination of young people and galvanize others into getting involved.

Boris Johnson and Tessa Jowell are equally supportive.

Neale Coleman, the mayor's adviser on London 2012, and Peter Bishop, deputy chief executive of the London Development Agency, went before the London Assembly's Budget and Performance Committee this morning to primarily face questions about the Olympic Park Legacy Company and the continued wrangling over who controls the Olympic Park and the liability the LDA took on to assemble it.
There was much of interest discussed.
For the first time to my knowledge, apart from in the pages of Estates Gazette and on this blog, there was a frank admission that a key sticking point has been central government's desire to have greater control of the OPLC than the current 50:50 position shared with City Hall.
Here is what I wrote about this a month ago here and here.
Coleman today said "good progress" was being made in this area but he wasn't hugely convincing.
He said that a sticking point was "around issues to do with governance and how [the OPLC] is run in the future. The mayor's position is very much it should be an equal partnership between GLA and central government as we want to make sure the company is driven primarily by creating the best possible legacy for east London and not just narrow financial situations affecting central government."

Baroness Ford was in typically straight-talking mood this morning at the Department for Culture Media and Sport Select Committee meeting.
I point this out because it cannot be easy sounding candid and lucid when the subject turns to Olympics budgets and in particular the "great matter" of who is politically in charge of the regeneration of the Olympics site post Games.
As with Henry VIII's great matter I think it will take several years before we see a victor, and at present I'm not sure if Boris is going to turn out to be Anne Boleyn (pictured) or Catherine of Aragon.

The Olympic Park Legacy Company has this morning warned that as much as £450m more than budgeted for will be required to "transform" the Olympic Park post Games.

Speaking at a Select Committee meeting in front of the Department for Culture Media and Sport at the Houses of Parliament, Baroness Ford, chairman of the OPLC, and Andrew Altman, chief executive, confirmed that current Olympic Delivery Authority budgets for work on dismantling and preparing the 500-acre park in Stratford east London after the Games came in at £350m.

But Ford and Altman said the London Development Agency had separately estimated that a further £450m would need to be found by government to ready the site for use post Games.

It's clearly a significant development in terms of the "legacy" development of the park.