LOCOG & LLDC Begin Olympic Handover

The London 2012 Organising Committee and the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) marked the start of the handover of the Olympic Park, ambulance the centrepiece of the Games.

The programme of work to transform the Olympic Park site after the Games is well underway with LOCOG removing the temporary facilities that were necessary to make the Games happen. In just six weeks since the Paralympic Games Closing Ceremony a significant proportion of the temporary overlay has already been removed from the Olympic Park.

The start of handover means that the LLDC have taken operational control of the Olympic Park (perimeter security, access control and logistics operations) and associated areas. The Legacy Corporation will then begin works to transform the Park into a new part of London, to be known as Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, through a £292m construction project.

LOCOG has phased handover dates for specific venues and spaces to the LLDC. The Aquatics Centre, the Velodrome and the Basketball Arena have now been handed over to LLDC, the Copper Box will be handed over in November and the Olympic Stadium and Press and Broadcast Centres will be handed over in December.

Meanwhile, LOCOG is also preparing to hand over the Olympic Village to the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) so that a large-scale retrofitting programme can begin, transforming the 2,818 apartments and houses into East Village – a new community for London from 2013 onwards.

Seb Coe, LOCOG Chair, said: “The UK hosted a spectacular Olympic and Paralympic Games this summer.  We have now begun the first chapter of the lasting legacy we promised when we bid for the Games. We began our work straight after the Games to transform the venues, parklands and facilities in the Olympic Park to ensure generations to come will benefit from a golden summer.  I congratulate my team for taking out all the temporary structures so quickly so that the job of transformation continues quickly.”

Dennis Hone, Chief Executive of ODA and interim Chief Executive of LLDC, said: “The work has already begun on preparing the Olympic Park and Olympic Village for legacy. Once the overlay and Games-time elements are removed, we will start to deconstruct the temporary venues, adapt permanent venues for future use, reshape the landscape and retrofit the Village into a new community for London. This will take some time, but the wait will be worth it. Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park will be a fantastic new place to live, work and visit and enjoy. This really is an opportunity to create a legacy of the type we have never seen before.”

The Legacy Corporation’s huge construction programme is called ‘Clear, Connect, Complete’. It will clear Games-time overlay including temporary venues, walkways and stands, connect the Park to the surrounding area with new roads and pathways and complete the Park’s venues to their legacy designs.

To help people to get onto the Park as quickly as possible, the Legacy Corporation has planned its works to enable the Park to begin to re-open in phases, from 27^th July, 2013, as each piece of work reaches completion. The whole Park will be open by spring 2014.