London Update -- Johnson Unveils Legacy Plan; LOCOG Restricts Contractor Marketing

The newly-released legacy plan includes 10,000 homes in addition to the apartments in the Olympic Village. (London 2012)London 2012's Legacy to Include New Schools

London 2012’s legacy will be a university and four schools within the Olympic Park at Stratford, Mayor Boris Johnson and government ministers Tessa Jowell and Hazel Blears announced today.

“I believe that the future for this most deprived area is spectacularly bright,” Johnson said as he unveiled the Legacy Masterplan Framework.

The mayor and ministers reaffirmed the intention of using the Games as a catalyst to transform what has long been one of the most deprived areas in Europe.

After the Games, a university will be housed within the buildings used for the Main Press Centre at Hackney Wick. A sports academy secondary school, for children between 11 and 18, will be established within the re-worked Olympic Stadium. Its 25,000 seats will continue to host major track and field events and music concerts.

In the announcement, the Greater London Authority dropped a strong hint that the city will seek to stage the IAAF world championships at the earliest opportunity after 2012.

With plans for 10,000 new homes in addition to the 3,000 apartments that will form the Olympic Village, the area will also have three primary schools for 4- to 11-year-olds.

All will be contained within the largest new park developed in Europe for 150 years, traversing five boroughs. It stretches from the tidal Thames estuary in the south to rural Hertfordshire in the north. The waterways of the Lea valley will also be restored to provide important wildlife habitat in the midst of some world-class sports facilities.

A new company, responsible for managing the transition from Olympic to legacy mode and thereafter, will be formed. It will eventually take ownership of the land from the London Development Agency. A chief executive, characterized by Johnson as “the go-to person for all legacy matters," is being sought.

In legacy mode, the aquatics center will be retained along with the velodrome, while additional public sports facilities – soccer and field hockey pitches, tennis courts and BMX tracks – will be provided.

As well as the university, the Olympic MPC will also offer a post-Games “media city," with a proposed 10,000 new jobs, according to Johnson.

“One of my main concerns was always the lack of a clear vision for the legacy that would be left for east London from the huge investment we were making in staging the Olympic and Paralympic Games,” Johnson said.

“Today, after many months of hard work, I am delighted to be able to present that clear vision. It shows how we plan to use the investment in new transport, new infrastructure and new world-class facilities as the backbone of a fantastic new place to live, raise a family, do business, study, work and visit.”

Hazel Blears, the government’s communities secretary, said: “This legacy master plan is not only about buildings, it's about creating communities and a place where people are happy to live and work in for years to come.”

Today’s announcement marked the formal placing of the plans for public consultation for the next six weeks.

Contractors Banned from Marketing Olympics Role

Contractors working for the Olympic Delivery Authority and LOCOG have been banned from issuing press releases or any advertising mentioning their role with the 2012 Games.

LOCOG and ODA have released guidelines prohibiting Olympic-related marketing by2012 contractors. (London 2012)The “No Marketing Rights Clauses protocol," drawn up by London’s Olympic bodies, even specifies the tone suppliers may adopt in internal communications with staff about their involvement in the Games. The agreement stipulates it “should be undertaken in an understated, proportionate and regular fashion." Contractors are also banned from creating Olympic-related job titles.

The restrictions are additional to the highly restrictive gagging clauses imposed on suppliers. ATR reported last month that clauses in their contracts allow Olympic authorities to search their contractors’ offices and computer records.

By 2012, LOCOG and the ODA are expected to award 7,000 contracts, generating another 68,000 deals down the supply chain, worth at least $10 billion to the U.K. economy.

But the restrictive marketing clauses, imposed to protect the rights of Olympic sponsors, are stopping businesses from using their association with the Games from generating further deals, according to the Federation of Small Businesses.

“It’s important to allow them to shout it from the rooftops, so their reputation is enhanced,” the FSB’s Stephen Alambritis said. “We would urge the sponsors to calm down, relax and not resort to the letter of the law.”

LOCOG described its measures as “education, not litigation."

Lawyers Wait to Read Chambers’ Book

The lawyers for Sebastian Coe and Colin Moynihan will be waiting for copies of disgraced sprinter Dwain Chambers' book, "Race Against Me." Drug cheat Dwain Chambers promises "explosive" details in his new book, "Race Against Me." (Getty Images)In a round of pre-publication interviews, Chambers, who tested positive for drugs in 2003, has promised “explosive” revelations about his treatment by Coe and Moynihan.

Coe, the chairman of LOCOG, is a prominent anti-drugs campaigner. Moynihan, chairman of the British Olympic Association, ran his organization’s case in the London High Court last summer to uphold a bylaw banning Chambers and other convicted drugs cheats from representing Britain at the Olympics.

Chambers’comments about Coe and Moynihancould be a concern for publishers Libros International. The group is refusing to release any review copies of the book ahead of the March 2 publication date, possibly to avoid a damaging court injunction.

UK Sport’s Airline Deal Raises Funding Hopes

The British governing bodies of Olympic sports such as handball, volleyball and water polo have been given fresh hope of a funding boost before 2012. UK Sport has revealed plans to partner with London 2012 sponsor British Airways, reviving hopes that deals with LOCOG backers may be possible.

Both the British Olympic Association and UK Sport have found commercial backers thin on the ground. Not only is the credit crunch a problem, but in comparison with the London Olympics organizers, they have very few rights to offer sponsors.

Twelve Olympic sports and Paralympic disciplines were given less-than-optimal grant awards last month from UK Sport. The government body that handles sports funding failed to raise its target $450 million from commercial sources.

However, UK Sport's announcement that it has terminated its “Flying Start” program with Virgin Atlantic, in order to replace it with a value-in-kind deal with British Airways, indicates more funding may be available. The British Airways deal is thought to be worth at least $1.5 million per year.

British Airways is paying $60 million as a Tier One supplier to London 2012. Separately, they provided transportation to Macau, Hong Kong and Beijing for the British Olympic team last year.

…Briefs

… Christine Ohuruogu says she is in talks with London 2012 about having an official role in the build up to the Games. Christine Ohuruogu says she is in talks with London 2012 about a possible role for the build up to the Games. (Getty Images)She served a one-year ban for missing three out-of-competition drug tests before winning the 400 meters gold medal in Beijing,

Ohuruogu’s family home is within sight of the Olympic Park in Stratford. Before her suspension in 2006, she had been tipped to be “the face of the Games."

…Tourism minister Barbara Follett has refused to release additional public money to VisitBritain, the national tourism agency, to help it market the 2012 London Olympics around the world. Tourism Alliance chairman Bob Cotton called the decision “short-sighted and damaging." The U.K. tourism industry is predicting boom times in the next three years because of the weakness of the pound against other currencies, especially the euro and U.S. dollar.

…Dave Brailsford, performance director of British Cycling, is predicting that freestyle BMX will be added to the sport’s program in 2012. The young sport – the bike equivalent of freestyle snowboarding – has yet to be formally recognized by world governing body UCI, which would also need to cut another cycling event from its Olympic program to accommodate freestyle.

But Brailsford is preparing for the introduction. “The information I'm getting is I'll be performance director of street BMX, so I will have to go and get my hoodie and baggie shorts.”

Written by Steven Downes

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