Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 200 - 219)

TUESDAY 4 DECEMBER 2007

LORD COE, MR PAUL DEIGHTON, MR JOHN ARMITT AND MR DAVID HIGGINS

  Q200  Paul Farrelly: What is the multiplier that you use for inflation?

  Mr Armitt: About 6% per annum.

  Q201  Paul Farrelly: And with that we can get part of the way there—

  Mr Armitt: You get pretty well the whole way.

  Q202  Paul Farrelly: One of the things that you said in front of the London Assembly was that actually one element of the increased costs was actually the cost of conversion into legacy mode. Lots of us around the country have bitten our lips while the good causes have been raided and new swimming pools cannot go ahead because of the raid on the Lottery, but we have bitten our lip for the regeneration of London and the national pride of having the Games because there was going to be a legacy there. But now we are being told that actually we have to pay extra for that legacy.

  Mr Armitt: No, the 496 includes the conversion from 80,000 to 25,000.

  Q203  Paul Farrelly: But the cost was not included in the original—

  Mr Armitt: Whether it was included in the 280 or not I do not know but it is certainly included in the 496.

  Q204  Paul Farrelly: But we are being told that the cost is extra now for legacy conversion, effectively.

  Mr Armitt: No, it is not. No. Clearly the cost of converting something there is a cost and that cost will be borne in 2013 when that conversion is happening. But we have included money in the Stadium cost to convert it down from 80,000 to 25,000.

  Q205  Paul Farrelly: How much is that?

  Mr Armitt: My recollection is it is about 25 million.

  Q206  Paul Farrelly: I will labour the point. We had thought that the legacy cost would be in there in the planning in the bid in the first place. It is rather like the rest of the country being spun around the Olympic rings and while we are still dizzy we are being bashed over the head by the Olympic hammer because we are paying extra money on top of what we thought we were paying.

  Mr Armitt: I am not quite sure how to answer that but I would make the point that what is happening here is that there is an enormous amount of the expenditure on the Games which you can look at and say, "This is providing a long term benefit." This was one of the most rundown parts of London, an enormous site the size of Hyde Park, 500-600 acre site, which is a very rundown part of London—a contaminated area of high unemployment, etcetera etcetera. At the end of the Games this site will have been rejuvenated into one which provides a platform for major investment ongoing for the following 20 years. You can look at what we are spending in infrastructure, decontamination, putting the overhead cables underground, providing sporting facilities, providing job opportunities through the IBC and providing a fantastic central spine of parkland. The Lee Valley, the river will look nothing like it looks today; it will be far, far better than it is today. All of that is legacy and it is being provided through the opportunity of the Games. So when I look at people complaining about five billion, six billion that we are spending on the parkland, nearly all of that money is there for the long term and it is providing real legacy opportunity for the country and for every company that has been involved in supplying it. Half of the suppliers so far to us have come from around the country not from London, and those businesses are building their business off the back of being able to supply to the Olympic Games; they are obtaining experience which will enable them to bid across the world for future Olympic Games. So there is an enormous opportunity which this is providing, which I am quite confident is being taken and it will at the end of the day, I believe, be good value for money.

  Q207  Paul Farrelly: We do not want to begrudge East London anything but can I give you a homily of my own? At 2004 prices the cost of the Media Centre alone—2004 prices without an opposite estimate—is ten times the annual budget for regeneration of North Staffordshire, which has a population equivalent of three and a half London boroughs.

  Mr Armitt: The Media Centre must be one of the most complex buildings that is necessary as part of broadcasting the Olympics to billions of people across the world. It is probably the largest journalistic activity which takes place across the world every four years. You do not provide a building of that scale for 20,000 journalists without guaranteeing that they are going to be able to do their jobs properly because if they do not then we fail in showcasing Britain and in showcasing the Olympics.

  Lord Coe: And showcasing North Staffordshire!

  Q208  Paul Farrelly: We understand that and it is important to get the accurate commentary in North Staffordshire as well as Glasgow and anywhere else, but you can understand that the Committee and a Parliament that represents the nation and the regions because of the size of the sums involved it is important for us to be accurately appraised of the costs and how those preparations are going. Could we leave this Committee today—we have a figure for the Stadium—with up to date figures for the other four major centres, which I do not think we have? That is the Velopark, the Aquatic Centre, the Media Centre and the Olympic Village. Could you give us the four figures for those as well as the figure that we already have for the Stadium.

  Mr Armitt: No we cannot, for the very reason that we are still in negotiation with the primary commercial organisations to deliver those, and therefore the last thing I would want to do is to talk about numbers when we are in the middle of commercial negotiations. As we move forward so we will be able to reveal the numbers and, as David has already said, in the next two weeks more details will be announced by the Department. We have undertaken to be transparent with the progress that we make and as numbers are firmed up so we will release them. But I do not think it is actually in Parliament's interest to put those numbers in the public domain before those numbers are ones from which we have the most commercial opportunity.

  Q209  Paul Farrelly: I fully understand that but do you have an anticipated date by which all those numbers will be known?

  Mr Armitt: They will be progressive through the next 12 months because most of the major contracts will be placed by that time.

  Q210  Chairman: Could I raise two specific issues with you very quickly? The first is the Volleyball Arena, the Basketball Arena and the Fencing Arena were intended to be temporary and you stress that they could be relocated to other cities after the Games and that this would be part of the sporting legacy in the regions. We are now told that apparently these are no longer going to be temporary and are going to be located in permanent venues. Can you update us on whether that is correct?

  Mr Armitt: Basketball is certainly a temporary stadium; it is one which we are in the throes of developing the designs for at the moment and the intention is that that is a stadium which can be demounted and relocated in the future. The Volleyball is Earls Court. Handball is a permanent stadia and fencing is one which is being looked at at the moment.

  Q211  Chairman: So the report that basketball may be transferred to the Millennium Dome, the O2 is incorrect?

  Lord Coe: Those are the finals.

  Mr Deighton: The finals were always going to be played there.

  Lord Coe: Can I just make the broader point that our template going forward was where possible to use existing facilities. During the bidding process it was actually one of the most important concepts for us that we already had 64% of those facilities in place. Where we could not make a cogent case for usage going forward in any structured way we wanted to deliver in temporary, and only where we could make that case did we want to put something down that was permanent, but we have always been very open to where permanent facilities become available, particularly in our existing structures, where we might be able to make the Games a better spectacle for athletes, the presentation of those sports, spectator access, we have clearly looked at that and that will be an ongoing process.

  Q212  Chairman: And the report specifically about fencing, that that is now going to be transferred to the ExCel, is that correct?

  Lord Coe: None of that thinking has been finalised but as I make the point, if we are able to look at existing facilities as venues that has to be a sensible way of approaching things.

  Q213  Chairman: Although you will then lose the projected legacy use across the regions?

  Lord Coe: Yes, clearly all this has to be in conjunction finally with IOC sign-off, discussions with our governing bodies and all the legacy thinking. But that is where we are at the moment and that is a process that should be taking place.

  Q214  Chairman: Can I ask you on one other area, you will be aware that British Shooting have said to us that they think that the proposed site at Woolwich is not the best and that you would do better to move shooting to a new facility at Dartford, which would provide legacy use. Are you in discussion with British Shooting about this or do you simply reject their suggestion?

  Lord Coe: I will ask Paul Deighton to take you through the detail but, no. We are of course in discussion with British Shooting but we are very comfortable about the venue that we have chosen; it has been signed off by the International Federation and signed off by the International Olympic Committee and we are discussing legacy and all the other things that you would be doing. The template again, let us be very clear about this, through the International Olympic Committee and through our bidding process was to provide a compact Games. We were able to go into that bidding process by saying that 80% of our athletes were within 20 minutes' travel time and we wanted to bring sports into the city that were accessible to new client groups, and that was clearly part of the legacy and the participation programme going forward.

  Mr Deighton: Nothing has changed since the host city contract was signed. When we originally made the bid the shooting was sited in Bisley; we moved to Woolwich because in order to win the Games we were required to have a more compact Games and Woolwich would enable the athletes to stay in the Olympic Village. At that time the IOC, the International Shooting Federation and the national governing body all signed off on it and nothing has changed, so we expect to move forward on that basis.

  Q215  Chairman: They may have all signed off on it but British Shooting, which is the governing body, has clearly not signed off.

  Mr Deighton: No, they did sign off but they had a change of Chairman.

  Q216  Chairman: They have changed their minds.

  Mr Deighton: British Shooting signed off on it; they have had a new Chairman who has revisited it.

  Q217  Chairman: But you are not persuaded that you should revisit it.

  Mr Deighton: We are staying.

  Chairman: You are staying.

  Q218  Philip Davies: I was reading the paper a couple of weeks ago and Barry Hearn seemed to be claiming that Leyton Orient would be playing at the Olympic Stadium after the Games. Could you tell us where we are with Leyton Orient?

  Mr Higgins: There have been talks; there is nothing finalised. Certainly they are an attractive tenant, that is for sure.

  Q219  Philip Davies: Are they the most likely tenant?

  Mr Higgins: They are one of the tenants, including National Athletics and potentially Premiership Football.[6]

  Chairman: Can I thank you very much.





6   Note by Witness: Witness meant rugby Back


 
previous page contents next page

House of Commons home page Parliament home page House of Lords home page search page enquiries index

© Parliamentary copyright 2008
Prepared 30 April 2008