[Previous entry: "UK Sport clarifies its position on supplements"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "Pilczuk appointed to lead sprint freestyle programme in Swansea"]
22/05/2003: Early start for London's Olympic swimming complex
Engineering trade journal New Civil Engineer reports that London will show its Olympic intent with an early start for an Olympic aquatics centre. Construction of a new £59M swimming complex for the 2012 Olympics will start next year even though a decision on whether Britain will host the games is not expected until 2005, the government said this week.
A decision to award London the Games is expected to trigger a £403M sports facilities construction programme. Culture secretary Tessa Jowell announced last week that London would bid to host the 30th Olympiad.
Start of work on the swimming complex is intended to show the International Olympic Committee that Britain is serious, a Department for Culture Media & Sport (DCMS) spokesman confirmed. The project includes a new 50m swimming pool and diving pools.
"There's an assumption that in addition to straight bid costs we will build the 50m pool"said the DCMS.
Bidding for the Games - including master-planning the derelict Stratford site and detailed design of sports venues, accommodation and new transport links - is expected to cost between £16M and £17M.
The swimming complex will be owned by sports promotion body the English Institute of Sport, whether the Olympics goes ahead or not.
In January members of parliament’s culture, media and sport select committee said that a UK Olympic bid would be undermined by a series of high profile projects that had been mishandled.
These include failure to deliver the planned national athletics arena at Pickett’s Lock in east London, ham fisted management of the Millennium Dome, and the stop-start farce ahead of the eventual construction of the new Wembley Stadium.