Winning and delivering the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games is set to become one of the UK's most compelling stories of the early twenty-first century. In just 7 years a talented team of civil engineers and other professionals will have transformed one of the most derelict and neglected sites in Europe into a spectacular theatre for the world's largest sporting event – and laid the foundations for a dramatic regeneration of a large swathe of east London (Figure 1).
Around 400 ha of derelict land in east London is being transformed into a spectacular setting for the London 2012 Games and will have laid the foundations for dramatic regeneration.
Main buildings (clockwise from bottom left) are: Velodrome, Basketball Arena, Olympic Village, Stratford City, Aquatics Centre, Olympic Stadium, Energy Centre, Handball Arena, and Broadcast and Media Centre.
Around 400 ha of derelict land in east London is being transformed into a spectacular setting for the London 2012 Games and will have laid the foundations for dramatic regeneration.
Main buildings (clockwise from bottom left) are: Velodrome, Basketball Arena, Olympic Village, Stratford City, Aquatics Centre, Olympic Stadium, Energy Centre, Handball Arena, and Broadcast and Media Centre.
On 5 July 2005 in Singapore, Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced that London had won the competition to stage the summer games of the 30th Olympiad. This marked the end of a long struggle to bring the event back to Britain; while it had been host twice before – in 1908 and 1948 – the country had never before had to bid.
The UK's formal campaign for 2012 began in 2003, although the idea had been germinating since early 1997. The two previous events had been staged in west London but, this time, support from the then mayor Ken Livingstone was predicated on the games being centred in east London to act as an engine for investment and regeneration in one of the capital's most deprived areas.
Bidding for the 2012 Games was a close and fiercely fought battle between London, Paris, New York, Moscow and Madrid. London joined the race relatively late and was not a favourite in the early rounds: in May 2004, IOC's evaluation commission ranked London a distant third after Paris and Madrid, citing the capital's often ‘obsolete’ transport as its Achilles heel. This precipitated a change in leadership, with the former Olympian Sebastian Coe taking over as chairman of the bid company. In the final voting London and long-standing favourite Paris went head-to-head, with London emerging as the victor.
The city promised to deliver the best games ever and also to provide a positive legacy for sport, for the IOC and for London. As with previous winning bids, the plans were ambitious in scope and scale. A huge amount of work had gone into producing the 550 page candidate file – a ‘bible’ of the bid that set out how the games would be delivered, locations, finances, transport and detailed plans for the Athletes' Village and a large new Olympic Park in Stratford, east London. The candidate file became enshrined in the host city contract, with its delivery underwritten by the British government.
To many, winning the bid was the end of a long and challenging road. However, it was really only the end of the beginning. The real challenge lay ahead – turning the vision and ambition of the bid into reality in 7 years.
The first major contracts – to put 13 km of overhead power lines underground – had to be placed within a few weeks of the bid decision. Their burial in two deep bored tunnels under the Olympic Park was the first obstacle for the project, being right on the critical path for delivering the entire 400 ha site. Other major challenges were that the site straddled four London boroughs, had a legacy of industrial dereliction and pollution, was criss-crossed by railways and waterways, and interfaced with major adjacent projects such as Stratford City retail development and the Crossrail cross-London railway.
The other early hurdle for a public sector project of this scale and complexity was to create an effective and efficient delivery capability. A new organisation – the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) – was established by an Act of Parliament to drive this, and a chief executive officer and chairman were appointed on 1 January 2006. The organisation was then formally established on 1 April 2006 and took on the mantle of delivery from the London Development Agency and the Greater London Authority. The next major decision was to appoint a delivery partner to help build capacity and expertise. A private sector consortium called CLM – consisting of CH2M Hill, Laing O'Rourke and Mace – was appointed in this role through an Official Journal of the European Union competitive tender.
The delivery of London 2012 is a great opportunity to promote the civil engineering profession worldwide. ODA has therefore been working with the Institution of Civil Engineers to put together a series of special and themed issues of ICE Proceedings journals to record as much of the processes and lessons learned as possible, of which this is the first. The aim is to showcase the engineering and planning feats associated with embedding sustainability into such a large project and to ensure lessons can be learned and acted upon by the whole built-environment community.
The papers in this special issue of Civil Engineering cover the early ‘planning and people’ stages of the project, from organisation and planning, through environmental and sustainability management, to procurement, employment, safety and transport. A special issue of Civil Engineering on the design and construction of the venues and infrastructure is currently in preparation, and a third issue examining the legacy of the games is planned for the not-too-distant future. A wide range of more technical papers is also being published in the specialist parts of ICE Proceedings journals – all of which will be free on-line from the ICE virtual library at www.icevirtuallibrary.com.
The first paper in this special issue (Hone et al., 2011) describes the establishment of ODA, the appointment of its delivery partner and the building of the delivery ‘machine’. It also addresses issues such as the governance, reporting and assurance arrangements established to keep this very high profile public project on course.
Nimmo et al. (2011) then explain the way in which the team set about master planning, designing and securing the necessary permissions for a huge programme of development and regeneration. Their paper describes the challenges of delivering a coherent plan for a site straddling four different borough boundaries and of reconciling the demands of the long-term sustainable legacy with the games-time requirements.
A central theme in the bid was to deliver a ‘one planet’ games – meaning it was aligned with international targets for achieving a sustainable world. The next two papers (Jackson and Bonard, 2011; Epstein et al., 2011) describe how the project set out a very clear vision on 12 key sustainability principles, how these were delivered on the ground as a ‘total approach’ and how ODA realised its commitment to environment and sustainability. The papers seek to draw out lessons for other major projects to help the construction industry rise to the ever-growing challenge of creating sustainable development.
Cornelius et al. (2011) then set out how the procurement of venues, infrastructure and services was managed, including the cluster packaging strategy, delivery partner arrangements, the NEC3 contracting strategy used and supply chain management. With an immovable deadline and tightly controlled public budget, this was one of the most critical aspects of the whole project to get right – and its success will set a new benchmark for construction procurement.
The next two papers focus on the central themes of any major project – the people and behavioural aspects of the programme. ODA sought to use a clear leadership model, coupled with the inspiration of the games, to push the boundaries of best practice in the construction industry. Martins et al. (2011) describe the programmes and initiatives to deliver local employment diversity, skills, training and apprenticeship programmes on site. Shiplee et al. (2011) then set out how ODA and CLM established a strong culture and zero tolerance approach to health and safety on site, working with its contractors and the supply chain.
The final paper (Sumner, 2011) reports on the huge logistical challenge of transporting spectators to the games. Around 11 million spectator tickets are available for the 27 days of events, and transporting spectators to and from venues must take place while keeping London and the UK moving. It describes the complex planning and delivery of transport infrastructure and services that will help to ensure that London 2012 is a genuine success.
We are grateful to all the authors, referees and organisations who have made this publication possible and hope that it becomes an invaluable reference for the civil engineering profession.
