London’s successful bid for the 2012 Olympic Games is excellent news for the glass and window industry. The various stadia projects, surrounding infrastructure development, 17,320 bed Olympic village, and extra 17,000 hotel rooms in the capital will be benefit many industry companies. The bid has already had an effect on infrastructure projects. At least 7,000 construction jobs will be created.

Commenting on the news, Allan Wilén, Economics Director of the Construction Products Association said: ‘The London bid set out an impressive £10 billion programme for sports stadia, accommodation and infrastructure investment, with the construction bill alone expected to be £2.5 billion. Building work has, in fact, already started on two key venues – the £70 million Aquatics Centre and the £30 million Velopark.’

Suffolk specialist glazing firm English Architectural Glazing is already helping to build the infrastructure needed to turn London into a world class sporting arena.

Edward Whipp, EAG’s Pre-construction Director, said: ‘This is fantastic news not just for the country as a whole but also for EAG. We are already working on the station at London City Airport to provide both glazing and aluminium cladding. The project is a multi million pound one that will see the trains running to the airport by the end of the year.’

He added: ‘As well as building a world class Olympic Park, London has a lot of work to do to make sure the infrastructure is in place to deal with the volume of people traveling around during the event and we are expecting an increased workload over the next few years as a result. We are proud to be part of the current regeneration work and extremely pleased that London has won the right to hold the Olympics in 2012.’

David Strang, Sheerframe product director for L.B. Plastics Ltd comments: ‘Sheerframe fabricators are already very involved with East London regeneration and in particular the refurbishment under the decent homes programmes for social housing.

‘We also have an increasing presence in the Thames Gateway newbuild programmes which were going ahead prior to the successful Olympic bid.

‘The additional newbuild programmes involving athletes accommodation, etc., will fit in perfectly with the active presence and experience in this part of London that Sheerframe fabricators have and often with the same contractors that we are dealing with on newbuild and social housing regeneration.’

Source

Glass Age