London Olympics 2012

The organizers of London’s 2012 Olympics are planning to transform half the site of the games into the largest park developed in the city for 150 years.

The area will measure 100 hectares (247 acres), similar in size to Hyde Park, follow the River Lea in east London and be completed around 2014. It will include gardens, meadows and wetlands, paths for walking and cycling and sports fields, the Olympic Delivery Authority said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.

Hyde Park, once a hunting ground for King Henry VIII, covers 142 hectares in central London. The city’s Olympic Park, which will include the main athletic facilities, is being built in a former industrial area surrounded by some of London’s poorest neighborhoods. It’s Europe’s largest public construction project.

“Our world-leading design team will help develop our plans to transform this former industrial area into a thriving park that boosts sustainable and active living, creates new wildlife habitats and anchors the regeneration of a neglected part of east London,” authority Chief Executive David Higgins said.

The 1,000-hectare Richmond Park is London’s largest, while Regent’s Park is 166 hectares.

The authority picked LDA Design and Hargreaves Associates to design the parkland. LDA Design is based in London and Hargreaves Associates is based in San Francisco.

One in 10 people currently working on the London 2012 Olympic Games building project was previously unemployed, official figures have revealed.

Statistics published by the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) also showed that out of the current workforce of 2,275 one-fifth live locally in the boroughs of Newham, Hackney, Waltham Forest, Tower Hamlets and Greenwich.

The ODA published the figures as it set out its strategy for employment and skills during the construction of the Olympic Park.

London 2012 Jobs explains out how the ODA will work with public and private sector organisations to help contractors recruit the 9,000-10,000 workers that will be needed at peak times during the run-up to the Games.

Launching the strategy, prime minister Gordon Brown said: “The job figures and the ODA employment and skills strategy published today show that the construction of the site can be the catalyst for lasting social and economic change. With more than 10% of the current Olympic Park workforce previously out of work an excellent start has been made.”

The core elements of the strategy include:

* A new jobs brokerage service that will match candidates living locally and elsewhere in the UK with Olympic Park job opportunities.
* The Olympic Park site will become part of a multi-million pound National Skills Academy for Construction, funded by ConstructionSkills, the Learning and Skills Council and the London Development Agency.
* A target of 2,000 trainees, apprenticeships and work placements working on the Olympic Park and other London 2012 venues, including a programme aimed specifically at placing women into construction jobs.

British Airways is expected to be announced as the official airline of the 2012 Olympics in London as it ends sponsorship of popular attraction the London Eye.

Marketing website brandrepublic.com says that BA will pay around £50 million to be a ‘tier-one’ domestic sponsor for the London Olympics. Other UK household names that have already been confirmed as tier-one sponsors for the Games are Adidas, EDF Energy and Lloyds TSB.

Further tier-one sponsors are expected to be found in a number of business sectors including automotive, oil and gas and telecommunications. As well as domestic sponsors, London 2012 already has worldwide sponsor partners including Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Visa, Panasonic and Samsung.

British Airways is expected to launch a new advertising campaign next month featuring the brand new Heathrow Terminal 5 which opens in March. The ad campaign will also feature the London 2012 logo it is reported.

BA has sponsored the landmark popular London tourist attraction the London Eye for eight years but appears to now be focusing on being recognised as the main carrier for the London Olympics. As well as the prestige associated with the title, BA is also likely to secure thousands of bookings from people flying to London for the Games.

British Airways could be hit by a strike by pilots who are members of the British Airline Pilots Association. The dispute between BA and the pilots is over the airline’s insistence that its new subsidiary airline OpenSkies should have a separate pilot workforce.

The Commission for a Sustainable London 2012 has appointed Dr Claire Holman, director of environment and sustainability for Peter Brett Associates, as a core commissioner.

Dr Holman will support the Commission Chair in providing expert advice and feedback to the Olympic Board on the sustainability of the Games programme, identify good practice and areas for improvement, and assess risks.

She has a particular interest in the use of health impact assessment for regeneration and waste management projects, and leads a team of scientists, engineers, environmentalists and public health specialists working on regeneration, waste management and land development projects.
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Britain’s shooters are unhappy with the venue for their events at the 2012 London Olympics, saying it will leave no legacy for the sport.

British Shooting chairman Philip Boakes said the 7,500-seat temporary venue at the Royal Artillery Barracks in southeast London would cost more than 25 million pounds (US$48.6 million; euro33.5 million) and will be demolished after the games.

“We will have nothing left for shooting after the end of the Olympics and that is the reason we are so unhappy,” Boakes said Monday.

British Shooting wants a gun club in Dartford, a 45-minute drive away from the Olympic Park in London’s East End, to be revamped to become a permanent range for all shooting disciplines.

“We don’t have a world-class venue in the U.K.,” Boakes said. “We haven’t held an international competition for 30 years because of that fact.”
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The London 2012 Business Network was launched at Manchester United’s Old Trafford stadium to an audience of more than 600 business people.

“It will contain all kinds of contracts, including IT,” a spokesperson for the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) told GC News on Friday.

“The idea is that, if our contractors have some kind of IT requirement, then they will advertise it through the website. So it could be small-scale IT maintenance, software or hardware, or any aspect of IT supply,” said the spokesperson.

The network is divided into three sections: firstly, there is a section for information on upcoming opportunities; secondly, a section for business events; and, thirdly, a “CompeteFor” service, which the ODA describes as a “business dating agency” that will match companies to thousands of opportunities for supplying London 2012 contractors.
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The organizers of London’s 2012 Olympic Games plan to start hiring companies for 6 billion pounds ($11.8 billion) worth of contracts as they prepare for construction to begin later this year.

The vast majority of business opportunities remain to be let, and this year represents a huge opportunity for U.K. businesses,” said John Armitt, chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority, in an e-mailed statement today.

The games have a budget of 9.3 billion pounds, and will be Europe’s largest public construction project. The organizers started clearing the 500-acre (200-hectare) Olympic Park site last year.

The delivery authority and the games’ organizing committee invited businesses to Manchester today to publicize Olympic opportunities. More than 500 contractors have won business worth 1 billion pounds so far, the authority said.

Businesses the length and breadth of the country will win contracts, and we hope gain a huge amount of experience of what it takes to stage and host big sporting events,” said Sebastian Coe, chairman of the organizing committee.
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