Iconic London 2012 Stadium Wrap Scrapped Under Budget Cuts

(ATR) Plans for a huge fabric wrap around London 2012's 80,000-seat stadium are shelved under the British government's wide-ranging budget cuts.

The $11 million fabric curtain concept idea was conceived to enclose the seating bowl and provide a space to display artwork and video images to brighten up an otherwise dull-looking stadium.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport announced that the project had been abandoned Wednesday under cuts unveiled in the government's comprehensive spending review.

The DCMS said it had made additional savings of $31.4 million by cutting plans for the fabric wrap and through efficiency savings made by the Olympic Delivery Authority on venues and infrastructure. Details on these savings will be revealed in the Quarterly Economic Report on Nov. 9.

As expected, London's $14.7 billion Olympic funding package remains intact and the nearly $1.6 billion of contingency is untouched.

Crucially, the government has protected elite sport by maintaining funding for Olympic and Paralympic sports preparing for the Games. UK Sport's budget is cut by 28 percent in real terms by 2014/15, but this is partly offset with an increase in lottery funding. The news comes as a relief to UK Sport, the nation’s high performance sports agency, which is funding Olympic athletes in the build-up to 2012.

VisitBritain's Olympic tourism strategy will be heavily impacted in the run-up to the Games after the national tourism agency was hit with a 34 percent cut. In cash terms, the budget settlement means a reduction in grant aid from $45 million this year to $33 million in 2014/15.

The scrapping of the fabric wrap will be a blow to ODA chairman John Armitt, who has appeared keen on retaining it.

Just two months ago, he insisted to Around the Rings that the project was going ahead,although not as ambitious as initially envisaged due to cost pressures. "I am not planning to engineer anything out [of the 2012 project]," he said.

"It's still being designed, still being debated. In the current cost environment, of course, we are probably likely to spend less rather than more on it," he said. "But I think it will just finish it [the stadium] off and give us the ability to light it. Particularly at night it will look fantastic."

UK Sport was satisfied with its settlement in the government's spending review.

"This settlement represents a positive outcome in difficult times," UK Sportchief executive Liz Nicholl said.

"While tough, it recognises that the funding and support we give to Olympic and Paralympic sport is a crucial element of the nation’s London 2012 ambition.

"Ministers have been clear throughout the process that they see the continued support of sports and athletes through to London 2012 as a priority, and this reduction will not have any significant impact on our goals."

Nicholl added: "The settlement means that, combined with the proposed changes in National Lottery distribution and the future income projected as a result, we believe we have the resources we need to fund athletes and support services through to 2012, should sports continue to justify that funding on performance grounds."

But she warned of further cuts for national governing bodies for the Rio 2016 Olympics cycle.

"We will see further reductions but have committed to ensuring that over the period of the spending review we do not reduce our investment in the summer Olympic and Paralympic sports program by more than 15%. Again, we should see an increase in National Lottery funding help us to manage this," she said.

UK Sport will now embark on its annual review of investment across all summer Olympic and Paralympic sport, following its investment principles and "no compromise" approach, which prioritises resources towards sports and athletes with the greatest chance of succeeding on the world stage. The results will be published in December.

Written by Mark Bisson.