Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
80-92)
BARONESS FORD
AND MR
ANDREW ALTMAN
3 MARCH 2010
Q80 Mr Sanders: I have to say I have
been very confused by that. Do you support the view of Seb Coe
that the Stadium should primarily have an athletics legacy?
Baroness Ford: Yes. Our board
is perfectly clear that the bid commitments have to be met. I
am not sure I would say the word "primarily" because
Seb would be the first person to say that primarily sounds as
though that would be the dominant use of the Stadium. We know
that the amount of times athletics will be using the Stadium is
not a huge amount of time, maybe a couple of dozen times a year,
but for me premier athletics must be part of the mix because that
was the bid commitment.
Q81 Mr Sanders: Is there a danger
that if you have a prolonged and protracted discussion about what
is going to happen to this Stadium it could put London's bid to
host the World Athletics Championships in 2015 at risk?
Baroness Ford: I do not think
so. We are working very closely with UK Athletics, and Ed Warner
and his board are fully behind what we are doing—in fact,
they are working up this process with us. I do not think the Stadium
is the issue. There are lots of other issues about the 2015 Athletics,
such as how it would be funded and so on, that are not anything
to do with us, but I do not think Ed believes that the process
we are going through is unhelpful to him at the moment.
Q82 Mr Sanders: Have we identified
any other post-Olympic stadium which did not become a national
football stadium that has a successful legacy?
Baroness Ford: Sydney?
Mr Altman: Possibly. I would have
to look.
Q83 Mr Sanders: We have seen a lot
of very almost tumbleweed stadiums as part of our last three years
of work.
Baroness Ford: That is exactly
what we want to guard against, which is why we need to get this
settled once and for all this year, and there are lots of ways
in which it can be settled. The current status quo, the planning
status quo, is for the Stadium to be taken down and rebuilt into
a 25,000-seater premier athletics stadium, the new Crystal Palace.
If that is what we decide to do and if that is what people decide
is the best outcome, fine, I do not think we should apologise
for that. We have Twickenham and we have Wembley, and we would
have a new athletics stadium—and that is what is currently
envisaged. If alongside that or complementary to that other things
can happen in the Stadium that make it more viable, that make
it more animated, that give loads of access to it that involve
the community, absolutely fantastic, and we think we can get to
a good place with it. I am quite confident we will get to a good
decision on the Stadium, but we must do it this year because it
cannot be left to just drag along.
Mr Altman: I would emphasise,
relevant to other Olympic stadiums, that what has been very helpful
is this has the possibility, has the flexibility exactly that
we are talking about. To give us the option, so that we are not
tied to any one specific outcome, that is positive. It is always
envisaged as a mix of uses to make it viable.
Q84 Chairman: UK Athletics have suggested
that they think it is feasible they could co-exist with a premier
league football club. Has the reverse commitment been made, that
a premier league football club thinks it can co-exist with UK
Athletics?
Baroness Ford: That is the question
we need to put to them now. People need to come in formally now
and tell us what they want to do and whether they can do it. Technically,
the pitch within the track is absolutely FIFA compliant from the
point of view of size, sightlines all of those things, and evidently
the Stadium is IAAF compliant. It was built to do that. These
things could technically co-exist. It is whether people want to
co-exist there. Ed, I know, is quite happy to share with football,
and it is for football now, if they want to come into the Stadium,
to tell us how they would keep their part of the bargain in terms
of the bid.
Q85 Chairman: But the discussions
you are having at the moment with West Ham are on the basis that
there will still be an athletics track.
Baroness Ford: First, we are not
having any discussion with West Ham at the moment, in the sense
that we are not engaged in any formal discussions with anyone.
We have obviously met with a range of people. West Ham, although
they have been very vocal about their desire to come there, are
not the only show in town, as it were. There are plenty of other
people who are interested in different uses for the Stadium that
would be complementary to athletics.
Q86 Chairman: Not premier league
football clubs, though.
Baroness Ford: I am not really
in the business of saying who we are talking to at the moment.
West Ham have made it plain themselves that they would like to
do that. We are in lots of discussions with many other people.
Q87 Chairman: Finally, can we turn
to what happens in terms of the management and day-to-day running
of the Park once the Games are completed. Who is going to have
the responsibility for that?
Mr Altman: To understand the different
phases might be helpful to answer your question, because there
is the phase, as the Chair said earlier, from 2012 when the Games
are completed, there is about a one-year period, and ODA have
said that by roughly, let us say, May 2013, the Park—not
all of the individual venues—will be ready to be turned
over to the Legacy Company. That is the timeframe they are working
to. There is that year period from 2012 to 2013 during which the
ODA will be doing a lot of the reinstatement of the Park, as the
Chair said.
Q88 Chairman: This is the transformation
programme.
Mr Altman: The transformation
programme—really the fulfilment of planning commitments
that were made: the demounting of facilities, retrofitting and
putting the Park in properly, much of those works. The roads would
all be put in, and then, when that work is completed, the Olympic
Park Legacy Company would take control of the Park for the operation
of the Park. We are in discussions with ODA and they are looking
at their exit strategy over the next year. It is going to be a
very important piece of work and we are going to be working with
them. It is possible that timeline could move up. That is something
on which we would be in discussions with them. As currently planned,
it would be May 2013 when the Park would be handed over from ODA
to the Legacy Company.
Q89 Chairman: You would then have
responsibility for the maintenance and running of it until the
new tenants have moved into the facilities.
Mr Altman: That is right. There
are a couple of different aspects. One would be the facilities
themselves we will inherit, which would be the Aquatics Centre,
the Handball Arena (which would then be a multipurpose arena),
the Stadium, and of course the IBC and MPC that we were just talking
about. Then there will be the Park itself, which is the open space.
Each of those could, frankly, have a different approach, and part
of what we are doing over the next year is identifying precisely
the operators and how we want to go about managing each of those
venues and the open space of the Park. One of the things that
the company will be looking at is no matter how that ultimately
is determined in terms of whether it is multiple facility managers
or one facility manager, we would always be looking and working
with Lee Valley Regional Park Authority on the integration of
the Park as a whole, so that it all works together with respect
to the public space, so that the housing works with the public
space and the venues, so that it is managed overall. Part of our
mission is to manage that well, to get best value for money and
long-term value for the Government so that it is managed as a
place, if you will.
Q90 Chairman: When do you expect
the public to get access to the Park after the Games?
Mr Altman: There are two aspects.
One is immediately post-Games. We are working with ODA, as I said,
as part of their Park operations group to see what kind of access
there can be post-Games. Obviously it would be great to let people
into the Park before all the transformation work begins, so they
can see what the Olympics was like. I just came back from Vancouver.
It is an absolutely exhilarating event. I had no idea until I
went there just how exciting it is and how it fills the streets
and fills the entire city with people and pride. In working with
the ODA, we would very much want to try to get people access to
that. There will have to be a period when work will go on, and
there may be much more limited access at that point, but then,
of course, in May 2013 there would be the full accessibility of
the Park.
Q91 Chairman: In terms of the employment
benefits which were sold to the local community, how confident
are you that those are going to be sustained post-Games as well?
Baroness Ford: We feel very strongly
about that. I know there has been some criticism by the boroughs
around the number of local people who have got employment there,
although the ODA's figures I think are good respectable figures
in terms of what they have been able to do on the job brokerage
and so on. It is very, very important for us, in everything that
we do, that local people feel as though this is their Park, that
they have an opportunity to enjoy it, that they have an employment
opportunity through it and that they may have a business opportunity
through it and so on. We are working quite hard at the moment
to figure out the best way to do that. To give you a simple example:
I had a discussion yesterday with the Institute of Groundsmanship,
which trains all the people who are greenkeepers or who cut the
grass at Wimbledon or whatever—perhaps I should not say
"cut the grass at Wimbledon," as I am sure it is much
more scientific than that, but those kinds of people—and
they would be keen to work with us every year to do maybe two
dozen apprenticeships, using the Park as a base for local kids
who might want to go into that kind of employment, that kind of
field. I am a huge fan of good old-fashioned apprenticeships.
Wherever we can, where we can offer those kinds of job opportunities—not
just temporary but for people to then go on and make a career
or a long-term go of something—we would be very, very keen
to do that. One of the people on our board, Lord Andrew Mawson,
who has phenomenal experience through the Bromley by Bow Centre
in terms of promoting social enterprise and so on, will be specifically
charged, with me, for making sure that every single thing that
happens in the Park has as much value attached to it for local
people as is humanly possible. We care very, very deeply about
that.
Q92 Chairman: Finally, can I come
back to one of the facilities which we have not really talked
about in detail. You said earlier, and it undoubtedly is the case,
that the Aquatics Centre is going to be the iconic building in
the Park. As a result, it is going to be one of the most costly
buildings in the Park as well. Are you satisfied that it will
be used sufficiently and have the facilities which local people
want?
Baroness Ford: Yes. We feel that
it is a brilliant example of multi-use of legacy. Colleagues in
the ODA have done a huge amount of work with the ASA and with
British Swimming. What is planned there and committed there now
is not just the governing body which will be basing themselves
there, but they are basing a lot of the elite coaching there for
swimming and diving. The University of East London wants to be
a regular user for the students. They have done a whole lot of
work with all of the local schools. One of the great things about
the flexibility of having two 250 metre pools is that the moveable
booms which have been built in mean that this should be a fantastic
facility for disabled people. A huge amount of work has been done
and a great programme is envisaged there. Although it will be
a more costly build in the legacy, I think it will become very
well used and very well loved. I am quite optimistic about that.
Chairman: That is all we have for you.
Thank you both very much.
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