The government’s head of urban policy has resigned to become London mayor Ken Livingstone’s key official on the 2012 Olympic bid.

David Lunts will leave the ODPM after the Sustainable Communities Summit in January, when he will become executive director of policy and partnerships at the Greater London Authority.

He will be part of the senior management team reporting to GLA chief executive Anthony Mayer. Lunts will be responsible for planning, housing, regeneration and the Olympics. He takes over from Jeff Jacobs, who has moved to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Lunts has spent two and a half years at the ODPM, where he was initially hailed as the department’s urban regeneration tsar, setting up the Urban Summit in 2002.

Recently Lunts’ role has changed, with Richard McCarthy becoming John Prescott’s right-hand man on the government’s sustainable communities plan at the end of 2003. Lunts’ empire at the ODPM is still vast, however, as he looks after English Partnerships, CABE, the Regional Development Agencies, Urban Regeneration Companies and the Northern Way.

Lunts denied that his decision to leave had anything to do with his change of role and praised McCarthy. He added: “I have a huge regard for John [Prescott]. Of course there are frustrations in government – most jobs are frustrating – but I wasn’t looking to leave. This was a great opportunity to be at the heart of London government at a really interesting time.”

It is understood that the ODPM has not yet found a successor to Lunts.

Lunts’ career covers some of the major regeneration schemes and organisations of the past 15 years. In the early 1990s, he sat on the board responsible for the regeneration of the notorious Hulme estate in Manchester.

As a result of his work in Manchester, the Prince of Wales picked him as the ideal candidate to head up his Prince’s Foundation – which promotes good quality Urban Design – where he stayed for three-and-a-half years before going to the ODPM.