1 Introduction
1. On the day that London was selected as Host City
for the 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games - 6 July 2005
- the Games themselves seemed a distant prospect. Now, 18 months
later, the project is approaching the end of its planning phase,
and decisions to be taken soon will dictate how the project is
delivered: a revised estimate of costs is to be agreed; a budget
is to be set for the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA), which will
prepare the site for the staging of the Games; and contracts for
the design and build of venues will be let. Looking beyond London,
work to co-ordinate efforts to maximise the benefits from the
Games across the UK is already beginning.
2. Early preparations for the Games, both by the
2012 project team and by the Government (in bringing forward the
legislation which became the London Olympic Games and Paralympic
Games Act 2006) were sustained by a remarkable degree of public
and cross-party political support. Eighteen months on, there is
still widespread enthusiasm for the prospect of the Games and
considerable hopes for the benefits that they may bring. However,
it was also perhaps inevitable that hard questions would begin
to be asked and concerns to be expressed about whether all the
aspirations for the Games can be achieved. Despite previous assurances
that budgets were sound, it is now clear that costs are going
to be significantly higher than forecast in the bid document.
Recent comments by the former Chair of the ODA - whether justified
or not - have also given rise to negative media coverage.
3. This report draws upon evidence taken over the
course of a year. Three public sessions were held with major stakeholders
in October and November 2005,[1]
and two further sessions were held in autumn 2006.[2]
Most of the written evidence received in autumn 2005 is printed
alongside the oral evidence taken at that point.[3]
Many of the submissions received in autumn 2006 are printed with
this report; a list of unprinted memoranda is given on page 59.
4. On 28 February 2006, we travelled to Canary Wharf
for discussions with London 2012 executives; we also viewed the
Olympic Park site from a rooftop gallery in an adjacent tower
block. We have also visited Olympic sites in Beijing and Seoul
(in May 2006), in Berlin (in December 2005), where we saw the
Olympic Stadium used for the Olympic Games in 1936 and for the
final of the FIFA Football World Cup in June 2006, and in Athens
(in December 2006), where we had a tour of the Olympic Sports
Complex used in the Games in 2004.
5. This is the first of what we expect will be a
series of reports from this Committee during the lifetime of this
Parliament, to complement scrutiny work by other Committees of
the House as well as by the London Assembly. At this stage, our
aim is to provide an informed cross-party view on progress and
principles, and to give early warning of areas of concern. We
hope that our recommendations and conclusions will be seen as
a constructive contribution to inform the various key decisions
to be taken shortly.
1 The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games
(LOCOG), the Mayor of London, the London Development Agency, the
British Olympic Association, the British Paralympic Association,
the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, UK Sport, VisitBritain
and VisitLondon. Back
2
Witnesses included the London Organising Committee of the Olympic
Games (LOCOG) and the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA), the Olympic
Lottery Distributor, the Central Council for Physical Recreation,
representatives of the London 2012 Nations and Regions Group,
and the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. Back
3
London 2012 Olympics: first steps, HC 552-i, ii and iii,
Session 2005-06. Back
|
