Olympic Park

Business case:

The Olympic and Paralympics Games are unique in the sporting calendar and receive huge television viewing figures as well as many accolades.

Television Coverage and Public Awareness:
The Sydney Paralympics Games were the most televised, raising public awareness.
The Atlanta 1996 Games sold their media rights for $0.5million and the Sydney
2000 Games sold their Paralympics Media rights for $4.1million

“The Olympic Games have always transcended sport. As individuals and nations they raise us all – athletes and spectators alike – to a higher plane.”
(Payne 2005)

The Olympic park acts as the centrepiece of the game; beside the fact of ensuring there is lasting legacy for the economy and the wider community.

For London, the Olympic park project provides the opportunity to regenerate a forgotten area and leave a legacy. Lower Lea Valley of East London is known for its young, diverse population, but also its derelict industrial land, high unemployment, and poor connectivity. The city’s goal is to use innovative design to not only create a unique Olympic atmosphere for the 7.9 million spectators, but also to leave behind a sustainable, revitalized community made up of new parks, homes, employment & business opportunities, sports facilities, and transport links. Olympic Stadium this centrepieces of Olympic Park features a clever design that will contribute to the sustainable legacy of The Games. It will host athletics as well as the opening & closing ceremonies and will later be converted into a smaller capacity venue for community events. The stadium is designed as a sunken bowl dug out of the clay with the playing field and lower permanent seating built into the ground to allow spectators a better view of the action. Seats, the innovative design will allow the 55,000 upper level seats to be demountable, leaving a 25,000 seat permanent sporting venue after the Games.

For instance, Barcelona is understood to be amongst the most successful cities in terms of legacy. As part of its successful development of its image and infrastructure towards becoming a key European hub – and a renewed centre for global tourism and culture, the city has also seen (as a consequence) massive house price and rental inflation (131% between 1987-1992), and the emergence of a large population of wealthy international resident/visitors and property investors benefiting from long term infrastructure investments more directly than some local populations, whose access to housing and jobs may not have significantly improved.

London 2012 provides a unique opportunity to address barriers to change, target hard to reach groups and model new attitudes and behaviours. However, legacy strategies will need to be embedded in existing programmes and policy areas to achieve success in the long term and real benefits to participation provided.

As Carbonnell (2005) suggests, drawing primarily on the Barcelona experience,
For any city, hosting the Olympic Games is both an honour and a challenge.
Much of the infrastructure required is temporary in nature; it only serves a purpose for the duration of the Games themselves. Barcelona took a very clear-cut approach on this issue: the aim was to undertake ambitious projects which would benefit the city as a whole, convinced that what was good for the city’s residents would also be good for the Olympic family.
(Carbonell 2005: 8-9).

Feasibility Study:

Problem:
Olympic budget breakdown:
The budget has risen to £9.3bn from the original £4bn at the time of the bid in
July 2005. The government credits the rise to inflation, contingency costs and the addition of the Value Added Tax (VAT).

Sources of income for such a large bill: expected income in millions £
Government 6,000
TV & marketing deals 560
Sponsorship & official suppliers 450
Ticket revenues 300
London Development Agency 250
Licensing 60
London council tax payers other funds
National Lottery
However, Operating and infrastructure costs exceed original bid projections in all previous four host cities studied. A city prepares its bid in an attempt to win the IOC competition; the winning of the competition is a distinct exercise from the actual budgeting for the event.
Opportunity:
In return for the costly budget, the Park will be the largest urban park created in Europe for 150 years and will bring long-term social, economic and environmental regeneration to the area of Lower Lea Valley. Between 30 & 35 new bridges and new rail links will be built to make the area more inter-connected. The Olympic Park site after the Games will have Riverside housing, shops, restaurants and cafes, new amenities for the local community.

The communities surrounding the Park will enjoy access to the open space via a network of canal towpaths, footpaths and cycle ways. An estimated £4 billion contributor to the London economy is forecast for the capital prior to and during the London 2012 Games.
The Games will focus attention on London and draw visitors from around the globe. Sydney is still reaping the benefits from the rise in tourism - in 2001 Sydney benefited from £2.3 billion of tourism spend and the Games generated around £1.2 billion in new business benefits, including new sports infrastructure and service contracts.
What is the solution?
The Games provides a significant catalyst for renewal; accelerating the completion of infrastructure projects (Barcelona 1992, Atlanta 1996, Athens 2004 and more modestly Sydney 2000) It will provide London the opportunity to intangibly re-brand itself as a destination which will increase the prospect of inward investment and enhance entrepreneurial confidence and expertise, an example of this was the (Barcelona 1992).
Project charter:

The vision for this project is to make the UK a world-class sporting nation, in terms of elite success, mass participation and school sport, To transform the heart of East London, to inspire a new generation of young people to take part in local volunteering, cultural and physical activity, To make the Olympic Park a blueprint for sustainable living and demonstrate that the UK is a creative, inclusive and welcoming place to live in, to visit and for business.
The main project objective is to develop a scope of work that when implemented will leave behind a sustainable, revitalised community made up of new parks, homes, employment and business opportunities, sports facilities and transport links.
Project Scope:
 Taking the opportunity to regenerate a forgotten area.
 To leave a legacy as history’s greenest Olympic to date.
 For the London 2012 Olympic Games to leave a lasting social, economic and environmental legacy for London and the U.K, while minimising any other adverse impact.