Race for the prize

The Olympic Games are a serious business. EU Infrastructure talks with the Olympic Delivery Authority’s John Armitt about London’s run to the 2012 finish line.

“The stadium's legacy will probably focus on the athletics side with a sporting academy associated with the stadium so it's used by schools as well as by elite athletes”
-John Armitt

On 27 July 2012, the starter's pistol on one of the world's biggest sporting event will be fired in London. The Olympics are coming to the UK capital and preparing the city for the massive influx of participants and spectators is the biggest game in town. Venues, transportation and accommodation all need to not only be built but connected into a seamless whole. It is an undertaking with global significance and one not without its controversies. From an original budget of £2.4 billion, the anticipated cost has risen to £9.3 billion. There has also been a huge debate about what becomes of the Olympic facilities in the long term. The memory of London's generally unloved Millennium Dome has not faded and nobody wants to end up with a series of expensive white elephants once the athletes have headed home.

As Chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority, the body tasked with making sure the games happen as planned, John Armitt is mindful that world's eyes will be concentrated on London in 2012, watching closely for any slip ups. He is also conscious that a project with so many disparate elements presents a similar number of opportunities for things to go wrong. But perhaps the most significant feature of a project like the Olympics, when compared to other major construction works, is the finality of its deadline. If you're building a hotel or shopping centre, overruns are costly, inconvenient and best avoided. If you're building the venues and infrastructure for a giant international sporting event, flexibility is not an option. When the Olympic torch is lit you simply have to be ready.

"Time is the one thing that we don't have," agrees Armitt when we meet up with him in London. "One of our fundamental drivers is ensuring that we are not held up for decisions and, given that government is funding the bulk of everything that we're doing, it is obviously important for government to be involved in those decisions. To be fair, government has not held us up, but I think without that absolute end date people could prevaricate their decisions." Despite a career spanning more than thirty years which has included stints as Chief Executive of Network Rail and Costain, Armitt freely admits to being in unknown territory as Chairman of the ODA. "London 2012 is the first project I have been involved in where it absolutely has to be finished to a fixed deadline," he says. However, operating under the pressure of immutable delivery dates has not been without its benefits. "It's interesting to see what good discipline that brings to the process," he continues. "Agreeing the budget was one of the most challenging areas early on, as it was perceived as an increase on the price in the bid book which didn't include inflation and VAT. Since achieving a budget, which included contingency, we've been able to work within it."

While wrangles over the budget have been extremely visible in media discussion of London 2012, Armitt is adamant that the biggest challenges from his perspective have been logistical rather than financial. "The Olympic Park workforce will peak at about 11,000 in 2010, and we have a lorry coming into the site every minute," he explains. "We have created off site holding centres so lorries cannot come direct to site but go to a logistics centre outside of London to be registered and given a delivery slot which is tracked and managed to prevent congestion."

To cope with the flow of traffic the ODA has split the project up into a series of island sites such as the Olympic Stadium or a particular bridge. "Knitting that all together through the services and through the road layouts, for example, has been a challenge but has proved to be quite a sensible solution," says Armitt. "It is a massive project and certainly people that are unfamiliar with the industry have difficulty comprehending the volume of activity, but by breaking it up into a series of manageable chunks we are proving it can be achieved."

Green goals

Aside from just getting the work done, the Authority also has a stated aim to make London 2012 the first sustainable games, setting a new standard for events of this type. As a result, the entire undertaking has been laid on a sustainable foundation. "We're building it in through a whole series of targets which we set fundamentally right at the outset to the designers of each individual building." Armitt explains. "Rainwater harvesting for grey water usage is something which we've focused on to reduce the amount of potable water that's required in the buildings. We've got a 40 percent reduction target and the CO2 footprint is to be kept down by 50 percent on 2006 levels."

The use of rail and waterways for transportation was another specific target, as well as asking suppliers what they could do to help limit the project's energy use. Armitt reports some impressive responses to this request, with the aggregate industry standing out in its pledge to provide 25 percent recycling. "It was the first time I had actually seen that in action," he says, visibly impressed. "Even the cement manufacturers were looking at ways in which they could reduce their CO2 footprint in terms of the firing up of the plants necessary for producing the cement. It has been interesting that when you ask people to help they do respond."

In fact, this response to the sustainability challenge has been one of the most striking features of the Olympic project for Armitt so far. Organisations are more open to new ideas than has traditionally been the case, recognising that a company's record on these matters is taking on ever greater significance. "In the current environment companies are probably more willing to listen because they know it's good for them in terms of their corporate responsibility and to how they're perceived in wider society," Armitt confirms. "Young people can see that a company is engaged with the green agenda, they're more likely to want to work for them."

Outside of the ODA's responsibility to bring Olympic facilities in on time, Armitt also sees the project as an opportunity to promote better practices across the construction industry. A job of this scale gives a client like the ODA a huge amount of leverage over its suppliers, allowing them to play a vital role in effecting change. "For example, in training, if you were to say as a client, 'Look, I want you to have three percent of your employees in training,' then contractors will do their best to achieve that," says Armitt. "But if nobody says anything, then you take the softer option, which is just to use the agencies and get in labour as required. That is just one of the big problems and challenges that the construction industry has. We have an ageing workforce so getting more young people in through training schemes is vital, and you can in fact change that through your procurement processes."

This focus on training is a big issue for Armitt and the ODA, tying into the wider idea of ensuring London 2012 is sustainable in every sense. The games themselves only go on for a couple of weeks, but it is hoped that their effects will be felt for much longer. "It's a major objective for us, particularly because of the area in London that we're building," he explains. "There is a lot of expectation, that the games are going to bring lots of jobs. Well, yes there are, if you've got the skills, and that is why to a certain extent we've had to say that we'll take unskilled people and provide skilled training. We've put several hundred now through plant operator training. They haven't all joined the project. Some of them have gone to work on other sites, but that doesn't matter. At least they now know how to drive a back actor and they can get a job, which before they wouldn't have been able to do."

Built to last

Just as important as establishing a long-term skills base are efforts to ensure a durable legacy for the venues and facilities that will play host to athletes, spectators and members of the media in 2012. Fifty percent of the Olympic Village accommodation has already been sold into a housing association while the remaining half will be sold on the market. "The design of that housing has focused on in the long term use and we're actually temporarily fitting out the accommodation for the games," says Armitt. "The individual homes will then be reconfigured in legacy to what is required by families, so there will be a lot of four and three bedroom flats there post the games. A lot of attention is being given to the design of the village to try and ensure that it is a successful regeneration project."

A different question is posed by some of the other facilities being put in place for the games, notably the sporting venues. Armitt is confident that both the aquatics centre and the velodrome will be viable in the long term, citing the success of similar facilities ion post-Commonwealth Games Manchester. However, the issue of what becomes of the Olympic stadium has proved more problematic. "The agreement with the IOC was that we would leave an international quality athletic stadium,' he says. "That we will do. The question is, what else do you do with the thing and how do you get maximum usage from it? It's not proved possible, so far, for example to finalise football or rugby as tenants. The legacy will probably focus on the athletics side with a sporting academy associated with the stadium so it's used by schools as well as by elite athletes."

The Olympics' status as a genuinely global event actually means that representatives of the media will outnumber athletes by almost two to one through the course of the games. This has necessitated the building of a truly massive broadcast centre. At nearly 100,000 m2 it is the second largest structure on the site after the Olympic Stadium. Ensuring that this centre has a life beyond 2012 has required a great deal of forward planning. "The challenge has been to try and design it in a way which gives maximum flexibility post games for subsequent use," says Armitt. "The other area is the parklands. We've got over 100 acres of parklands, and there it's been an interesting question. What level do you pitch the quality? We have gone for a very high level quality, particularly of the hard landscape, trying to create a benchmark, because not all the Olympic Park will be developed for the legacy. There will be areas which subsequently commercial developers will come into it, and so by setting a high level of design for our landscaping areas, we will influence the quality of the green spaces to be created when the rest of the Olympic Park is developed. The challenge becomes maintenance cost, as high quality landscaping does require a higher level of maintenance cost."

The issue of cost cannot be overlooked. The build up to London 2012 has coincided with another event of global significance, in the shape of the financial collapse and subsequent downturn. What impact has this had on the Authority's work? "The major impact was on how we finance the village and broadcast centre." Armitt replies. "Originally, they were going to be privately financed. When the financial offers came in, the cost of guarantees that were being sought, particularly by the banks, just made it nonsensical. If I'm going to pay you and guarantee your risk, then I might as well fund it myself and that is what the government has decided to do. Government is funding for the time being and when the financial climate is better we will go back to the private sector."

In fact, the slowdown actually brought a few benefits along with its inconveniences. "Inflation has been less than we forecast," Armitt continues. "Worker availability is easier than we might have expected if the boom had continued in the construction sector. Material prices have not gone up as much as we expected. On the one hand we've got some benefits because demand has been less. Prices have held out. On the other hand, we've had to finance several hundred million pounds of work out of the public purse, which we've been able to do through savings, and by not using as much contingents as we'd expected."

With less than three years to go until the games get underway, Armitt could be forgiven for feeling the pressure. However, he insists that everything remains on schedule and the solid progress is being made. The structural steelwork for the Olympic Stadium was completed a few days prior to the three years to go celebrations and the roof for the aquatics centre has swiftly followed suit. "We've now got all the permanent buildings started and our target for the next 12 months is to actually have all the major buildings structurally complete," he says. After that, the work moves inside, as a growing workforce arrives to fit out all the structures. There's a long way to go before London 2012 is ready to open its doors to the world, but this kind of project is a marathon rather than a sprint. Armitt at least is confident that the ODA has paced itself correctly for a successful finish. "We're on time. We're on budget," he says.

Political considerations

John Armitt explains why an anticipated change in UK government ahead of the Olympics isn't causing him too much concern.

"We've kept very close contact with Conservatives, particularly and the Liberal Democrats, and we brief them regularly so there are no surprises for them in terms of what's going on. We had the transition of course from (Mayor of London) Ken Livingstone to Boris Johnson, and Boris has been as supportive as Ken ever was. Different styles, but the level of support has been just as great.

Of course by that time, assuming the election doesn't take place until next year, we'll be within a year of completion and on track to complete all the construction by 2011, a year before the games. So the opportunity for somebody to come along and say that they want massive changes will just not be possible."