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Olympic legacy chief: Keep 80,000-seat stadium for World Cup bid
Matthew Beard, Olympics Editor25 Jun 2009
The woman who has the job of creating a legacy for the Olympic Park is to propose a shake-up of the plans for the main stadium.
As the newly appointed head of the Olympic legacy company, Margaret Ford signalled a likely U-turn by saying the venue should keep its 80,000 seats rather than being reduced to 25,000 after the 2012 Olympic Games.
She raised the prospect of the stadium hosting matches at the 2018 World Cup as part of an “iconic offer for London” if England's bid for the event is successful.
Baroness Ford, an urban regeneration expert who became chairwoman of London Partnership in 2002 and took the Millennium Dome off the taxpayers' hands by selling it to AEG, said she was convinced the “beautiful” stadium could pay its way as an all-year “visitor attraction”.
The mother of three from Edinburgh, who was made a Labour peer in 2006, is said by former colleagues to “know in her bones how the public-sector machine works”.
In another departure from the venue's original post-2012 proposals, she looks set to scrap plans to build a specialist sports school in the stadium.
In her first interview in the new role, she said: “I'd like to think about what we can do in terms of a really strong visitor attraction to the park. At the moment that doesn't quite sing out to me from the masterplanning that's been done with the stadium in particular.”
Lady Ford, 51, began work a month ago as the £95,000-a-year chair of the soon-to-be-formed Olympic legacy company and is answerable to the Mayor and the Government. Working with her American chief executive, Andrew Altman, she will be a key player in realising the wider ambitions of the Olympics.
Among her main tasks will be to sell land to recoup about £600 million spent by the London Development Agency on buying the 600-hectare Olympic site, effectively returning the proceeds to the taxpayer over a 30-year period.
She added: “People you talk to say that what is needed is a much stronger sporting legacy there and I want to work very closely so that what we leave there is a knockout sporting legacy. There's a lot of work to be done around how we use the facilities.
“For example there's no accommodation for elite athletes who want to come to the park and train. The Lea Valley Regional Authority (neighbouring the Olympic Park) has done a great partnership with the Youth Hostel Association which is absolutely perfect.”
Reader views (8)
Surely if we keep the stadium as it is we can then give local kids the opportunity to watch premier athletics and other events for nothing to fill the stadium, leaving them with a legacy to inspire them into taking up sports like athletics. I was watching an athletics event recently and the whole stadium looked full on tv but the seats were actually just painted different colours to look like it was full for the cameras. There's no need to decrease the size of the stadium, I'm so glad we finally have someone in charge of the olympics venues who has a bit of common sense about her, good job.
- Kris, London, 24/07/2009 00:24
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What happens if we don't get the World cup or FIFA decide Wembley and Arsenal are the two best grounds to use in London should the bid be successful.
I suppose we ought to be grateful this stadia actually is in danger of being built on time so credit to the workers on that site!
Hopefully for once our Olympics athletes (I mean ones on the track..not in the posh sports we are actually half decent at) do it justice.
- Mark, Watford, 23/07/2009 23:24
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Just give it to a Premiership Football Club and be done with it! At least that way we won't be stuck with the bill afterwards.
- John Minott, Catford UK, 23/07/2009 23:24
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She is right, i buy her idea. Good vision, keep up. . .
- Akaninyene Aloysius, Uyo-Nigeria, 23/07/2009 23:24
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We needed this type of vision before the ODA fixed the scope on the functional, minimalist uninspiring approach to venue creation for the Olympics - I hope not, but it may be too late to make meaningful changes now.
After reading about the latest £100m black hole and yet another LDA boss being "suspended", what on earth is going on in there?? Rumours have also been circulating in the regeneration world of poorly directed LDA funding for Wembley and Arsenal stadiums. Surely it is past time to cancel this disgracefully, wasteful local Government body and save taxpayers hundreds of millions.
- Jim, London, 23/07/2009 23:24
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And what events is the 80,000 seater stadium going to hold between the Olympics and World Cup? That's six years to fill a huge stadium with enough events to pay for its maintenance and upkeep, a tall order even for Beijing's Bird Nest which has failed to find a tenant. Better to reduce the capacity to 25,000, open the stadium up for the local community and hold smaller athletics events more frequently in case we don't win the World Cup bid.
- Darren, London, 23/07/2009 23:24
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It is beyond all sensible logic that the taxpayer should fork out billions for a new stadium and then untold millions more for it to be downgraded after the 2012 festival of running. jumping and throwing things.
The brain surgeon that came up with this idea should be sacked immediately and a plan put in place to construct a stadium that will be of use for the next 150 years.
Alternatively, scrap the stadium now and use Wembley, which is perfectly adequate.
- Nobby Clark, Perth, the Scottish one, 23/07/2009 23:24
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@Nobby Clark: There's no space for a running track at Wembley, surely the key requirement for an Olympic Stadium.
@Mark: Posh sports? I think you've been reading too many Patrick Barclay columns. I don't see how Britain's most successful Olympic Sport, cycling, could be seen as posh. I'm sure almost the whole country has owned a bike at some point in their lives.
- Mac, United States, 23/07/2009 23:24
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