World-class UK firms winning from London 2012 as main contracts signed

Discussions are also at an advanced stage on the Velodrome with a construction contractor due to be appointed in the next few weeks.

Balfour Beatty has won the contract to build the Aquatics Centre and ‘Team Stadium’ (Sir Robert McAlpine, HOK Sport and Buro Happold) were also confirmed as the contractor for the Olympic Stadium.

The ODA also confirmed the level of public sector investment for the Aquatics Centre and the VeloPark, including the Velodrome.

Budgets confirmed within ODA baseline budget

Both budgets include the contract price, allowance for inflation, VAT and legacy conversion costs. All of the published venue budgets are within the ODA’s baseline budget of £6.090bn, published by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) last December, with no call on programme contingency at this stage.

Aquatics Centre: located in the south of the Olympic Park the Aquatics Centre will be the main ‘Gateway into the Games’, hosting Swimming, Diving, Synchronised Swimming, Water Polo finals and the swimming element of the Modern Pentathlon during the Olympic Games. For the Paralympic Games it will host the swimming events. The iconic venue is being designed by renowned architect Zaha Hadid and will be built by Balfour Beatty, whose previous projects have included University College Hospital London, Birmingham New Hospital and the new airport terminal at Chek Lap Kok in Hong Kong.

The Aquatics Centre will have a capacity of 17,500 during the Games, reducing to 2,500 in legacy with the ability to increase this for major events, and provide two 50m swimming pools and a diving pool, facilities that London does not have at present. Work is on track to start by the Beijing Games and be complete in 2011.

The contract for the construction of the Aquatics Centre and the huge land-bridge that will be the main gateway into the Park during the games and legacy have been procured together and Balfour Beatty will build both elements.

The budget for the Aquatics Centre is £242m and the budget for the land-bridge that will also form part of the roof of the venue is £61m. The total of £303m has not changed throughout the procurement process and is within the ODA’s Baseline Budget as announced by DCMS last December.

Olympic Stadium: hosting the track and field events as well as the Opening and Closing ceremonies, the 80,000 seat Olympic Stadium is being designed and built by a world-class consortium, ‘Team Stadium’, whose previous projects have included the Arsenal Football Stadium and the design of the Telstra Stadium in Sydney. The ODA have been working with Team Stadium for over a year and signed a Memorandum of Understanding with them last July.

In legacy, the Stadium will reduce to a capacity of 25,000, retaining the capacity to host a variety of sporting, educational, cultural and community events with athletics as its core use. The ODA confirmed recently that construction on the Olympic Stadium will start three months early, in May.

The budget for the Olympic Stadium of £496m was published in October last year.

VeloPark: In Games-time the Velopark will include a 6,000 seat Olympic/Paralympic Velodrome to host the Olympic and Paralympic indoor track cycling events; and an Olympic BMX Circuit. In legacy, further facilities will be added alongside the Velodrome and BMX circuit to create a community cycling ‘hub’ including a one-mile Road Cycle Circuit, a Mountain Bike Course and a cycle speedway course. The legacy VeloPark will be operated by Lee Valley Regional Park Authority (LVRPA).

The budget for the Velopark including all the elements above and the legacy conversion costs is £80m. A contractor is due to be announced for the Velodrome in the coming weeks and construction is due to start in 2009.

Discussions on the Olympic Village and IBC/MPC are also at an advanced stage with work to clear the sites progressing well.

Announcing the contract awards, ODA Chief Executive David Higgins said: 'This is great news for the project and good news for world class British companies with so many UK firms involved. With these contracts signed there is a real sense of momentum as we approach the ‘Big Build’ ahead of schedule.

'All of these venues will not only provide state-of-the-art facilities for the Games in the summer of 2012 but also provide permanent legacy facilities for elite and community use long after the Games have gone. They are a huge investment in the future of this part of east London - approximately 75p of every pound we spend is delivering a clear legacy benefit for many years after 2012.

'At this stage we have not had to allocate any programme contingency. As we have stated many times in the last year we fully expect to do so as we manage costs going forward.'

Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell said:

“This is an important milestone met and illustrates that the project remains firmly on track. The Aquatics Centre and Stadium will be the showcase venues for 2012 and I am delighted that British companies will build them.

'This demonstrates the strength of our construction industry and bodes well for UK businesses winning yet more of the £6bn worth of contracts between now and 2012.'

London 2012 Organising Committee Chairman Sebastian Coe said: 'This is the year of the ‘Big Build’ on the Olympic Park – the year that construction starts in earnest and a new urban park in London starts to take shape with sport at its heart. In four years time London will have a world class Aquatics Centre, a state of the art VeloPark and a new athletics Stadium, providing much needed facilities for London and the south east. These facilities will be at the heart of a wonderful summer of sport in 2012, and for elite and community use for many generations. I hope that this will inspire more people to take up sport and that it will lead to more British medal successes in the years to come.'

Richard Rogers, Chief advisor to the Mayor of London on Architecture and Urbanism and a member of CABE’s 2012 Review Panel said: 'Zaha Hadid’s Aquatics Centre is likely to be the ‘jewel in the crown’ of the Olympic Park for the next century. Its elegant and sinuous design in legacy mode maintains many of the qualities of the original scheme that was developed in a design competition which I co-chaired a few years ago.

'I applaud the design team’s ability to create a highly functional and beautiful building of an appropriate scale and size for a legacy facility of this type. I completely endorse ODA’s strategy that any extra facilities - such as the temporary seating wings for the Olympics - should be removed after the Games, leaving a well-balanced and proportioned structure that works well with its context overlooking the Olympic Park for years to come. I am convinced that new scheme provides exceptional value-for-money for a building of international stature.'

Ian Tyler, Balfour Beatty Chief Executive, said: 'We are delighted to have reached agreement to proceed with the construction of the London 2012 Aquatics Centre, which will be at the gateway to the Olympic Park site and an important legacy for London.

'The project represents a unique challenge which will call on a wide range of Balfour Beatty’s skills in programme and project management, civil engineering, building, electrical and mechanical and other services.

'We look forward to delivering this iconic facility and to continuing our long-term work in creating a better London.'

Tony Aikenhead, Project Director for Team Stadium, said: 'We are delighted to have signed the contract to help deliver the Olympic and Paralympic Stadium. We have been working closely with the ODA and their delivery partner CLM on the design of this exciting project for some time from our shared offices at Canary Wharf and we are now moving to the site to continue working on the centrepiece of the 2012 Games.'

Nicholas Serota, Director of Tate and a member of the ODA Board said: 'The London 2012 Aquatics Centre will be an outstanding new landmark for London, providing greatly needed sports facilities for East London in a striking building. It will provide a spectacular entrance to the Olympic Park during the Games and inspire a thriving and exciting urban waterfront on the edge of the Park in legacy.'

Ricky Burdett, the ODA’s Chief advisor on Architecture and Urbanism said: 'The Aquatics Centre has undergone a rigorous process of design rationalisation to meet changing functional requirements. Zaha Hadid’s design team has shown exceptional creativity in developing new solutions that keep the spirit and dynamism of the early competition scheme. The swimming and diving pool complex will have a dramatic, spacious curved interior that will create a special experience for swimmers and visitors alike. After the Games, when the structure will be ‘retrofitted’ to its legacy mode, the building will make a strong mark on the landscape, with its curvilinear forms and glazed facades acting as visual gateway to and from the Olympic Park from Stratford.'

Notes to editors:

The VeloPark budget includes funding from Sport England, Transport for London and Lee Valley Regional Park Authority. Lee Valley Regional Park Authority has been identified as the legacy owner and operator of the VeloPark and will revenue fund the facility after 2012.
The Aquatics Centre includes funding from Sport England.

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