By Barry Newcombe, SJA Chairman
Nearly 30 members of the SJA were taken on an hour-long bus tour of London’s rapidly developing Olympic Park yesterday, providing an informative and very helpful insight into the facilities being built for the 2012 Games.
The tour was organised with co-operation with LOCOG press department’s Jayne Pearce and Amy Field, and was the first in a series of collaborative ventures that the SJA and London 2012 hope to arrange in the next three years.
The tour provided as close an examination as was physically possible of the entire site. Three big developments caught the attention of the visitors – the massive 80,000-seat main stadium, the Aquatics Centre and its eye-catching roof, and the International Broadcast Centre and Main Press Centre, where much of the base work is complete.
The Olympic Village, where 15,000 athletes will stay, is also well on the way.
The SJA group was told of the clean-up operation of the site, which meant demolishing hundreds of buildings, moving 52 pylons and their electricity supply underground and cleaning 1.3 million tonnes of contaminated soil.
The River Lea and more than five miles of waterways and tributaries which criss-cross the site, are one reminder of the old industrial uses of the area.
But new building now dominates, inevitably, as the project to host 205 nations and their athletes heads on remorselessly for the opening of the Games on July 27, 2012.
The next tour is on Wednesday September 2, and a few places remain available. Click here for details of how to book.
Further Olympic Park tours are planned for SJA members early next year.
Read Randall Northam’s blog after he attended the SJA’s Olympic Park tour by clicking here.
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