Johnson To Review 2012 Stadia Legacy
Mayor of London Boris Johnson has issued a rallying cry to businesses to submit ideas as to how the Olympic Park could be used after London 2012 is over.
In Beijing, as he prepared to receive the Olympic flag that will mark the handover to London as Olympic host city, the Mayor launched the ‘London Calling’ campaign as chairman of the Olympic Park Regeneration Steering Group.
The initiative is a prospectus setting out the ambitions for the Olympic Park after the Games and challenging global investors to submit exceptional ideas for its development.
The move by the Mayor could affect previous plans put in place for the venue post-Olympics including overturning previous promises to maintain the Olympic Stadium as a sporting arena.
The Mayor said: ‘In 2012 we will stage a spectacular sporting event but I am also determined that London should realise the potential that the 2012 Games offer to make our city greater still through the legacy that we can leave for generations to come.
‘A huge amount of our investment in the Olympic Park is for legacy. We are cleaning up the land, burying overhead power lines, upgrading roads and railways and installing new energy infrastructure. A site of this scale and quality, within a few minutes of a great city centre, must be almost unprecedented. We are delivering for 2012, but planning for the long-term.
‘Since my election as Mayor I have insisted on new focus and more impetus in planning and delivering this long term legacy. And today I am calling on investors and organisations around the world to come forward and surprise us with startling ideas that can preserve the memory of the Games while creating a new focus for London’s eastward growth.
‘We are looking for ideas of how London’s Olympic Park can become not just a great place to live, work and visit, but a place that retains a flavour of the extra-ordinary, a place with the ‘wow’ factor, a place of magic. We are looking for the mix of imagination and realism that marks out the truly great ideas and will create a truly great place.’
Entrepreneurs, innovators and investors should go to www.2012londoncalling.co.uk to submit their ideas. All entries will be evaluated by a panel including mayoral advisors, local government leaders and private sector entrepreneurs. Those who submit the best ideas will be engaged by the LDA to work up their plans for incorporation into the emerging legacy masterplan.
