CLM consortium wins Olympic delivery partner contractor squeezing out US favourite Bechtel
A consortium including Laing O’Rourke, Mace and CH2M Hill International has beaten US favourite Bechtel to the role of Olympic delivery partner.
The consortium, called CLM, was told at 10am on Wednesday that it had landed the biggest, highest profile Olympic contract, which is understood to be worth more than £100m in fees.
At a press conference on Wednesday afternoon David Higgins, chief executive of the Olympic Delivery Authority said CLM had won the job of organising the £5.2bn programme because of its international experience and its Olympic track record.
He said: “The team pairs the best of British industry with one of the world’s largest engineering firms. The three companies have, among them, worked on five previous Olympic and Paralympic games and are working on two forthcoming ones.”
He added that the experience of Laing O’Rourke and Mace on Heathrow Terminal 5 had also helped their case.
The decision to appoint CLM was made last Thursday, at a meeting between the ODA and Tessa Jowell, minister for the Olympics.
The decision was announced at a press conference at the ODA’s office in Canary Wharf, given by Higgins and Jack Lemley, chairman of the ODA and Sebastian Coe, chairman of the Olympics organising committee.
CLM has breadth of experience key to delivering the best Games and legacy
London mayor Ken Livingstone
Ron Brooks, a director of CH2M Hill, will lead CLM as chief executive, along with Bob Card, a colleague, Steve Cork, a Laing O’Rourke director and Mark Reynolds, a Mace director.
CLM is supported by other partners that it worked with on the bid including Davis Langdon.
Jowell described the appointment as “another big step forward on the road to 2012”. Ken Livingstone, mayor of London, said that CLM “had the breadth of experience key to delivering the best Games and legacy”.
CLM won at the expense of Bechtel and two other consortiums. The first, G3, was made up of Faithful + Gould, Gleeds (backed by Sir Steve Redgrave), Amec, Balfour Beatty and Jacobs Babtie.
The second, named Legacy, included Franklin + Andrews, Capita Symonds, Bovis Lend Lease and KBR.
The ODA said that it had been “a closely fought competition” between the four, but industry insiders said that CLM and Bechtel had been ahead of the pack from the start.
Union sources said they had been consulted by the ODA during the decision-making process and that projects such as Heathrow’s Terminal 5 had put Laing O’Rourke in a strong position because it was considered a success in terms of workers rights and safety.
The appointment rules Laing O’Rourke out of the contest to build the Olympic stadium. It will be responsible for appointing the main contractor.
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