The olympic game plan

Just over a month after the world heard that London had won its bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games, the construction industry is taking stock of the massive task that lies ahead.

Some QS and project management firms are creating special strategy teams to focus on the work they hope to win, while others are planning to capitalise on various expected ripple effects.

To help focus minds at an early stage, QS News spoke to experts and drew up a ten-point plan for getting it right.

Although £10bn has been earmarked to spend on preparations for the Games, around £8bn of this will go on roads and railways – and some of the work is already underway.

A 500-acre site in Stratford, East London, will be the centre of the Olympics. The Olympic Park includes six major building projects:

• The Olympic Stadium, which will seat 80,000 people and host the opening and closing ceremonies, plus the athletics events.
• The Olympic Village, which will provide accommodation for all competitors and officials.
• An Aquatics Centre, which will include two 50m swimming pools and a diving pool.
• A Hockey Centre, comprising two stadia and a warm-up pitch.
• A Velopark, including a velodrome, a BMX track and four multi-sport arenas for fencing, volleyball, basketball and handball.
• A state-of-the-art media centre.

The contracts available to QSs and project managers are wide ranging. Probably the highest profile role is PM on the entire Olympic project. The London Development Agency (LDA) has received 50 tenders for the job and will draw up a shortlist next week, according to Steve Davies, the LDA’s senior project manager.

At the opposite end of the scale there are roles on small jobs, such as the creation of archery facilities at Lords cricket ground, a £105,000 project lasting one month.

Many of those who have thrown their hats into the ring have set up dedicated Olympic strategy groups. Cyril Sweett is among them, with deputy chairman Derek Pitcher leading its team.

Other firms are hoping to pick up business on projects indirectly related to the Games – in what some are calling the “multiplier effect”. For example, the Heritage Lottery Fund is giving a total of £38m to the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Museum of London and the National Museums of Scotland for them to undergo major transformations in time for 2012.

There may be opportunities for smaller outfits to snap up business that would usually be won by larger firms, which will instead be tied up with Olympic work.

Certain companies have told QS News privately that they are steering clear of all Olympic work for fear of bad press if, or when, as they argue, things go wrong.

Indeed, there seems to be something about the development of Olympic facilities that does not respond to normal management and cost control procedure: all too often the first Olympic event is the spectacle of taxpayers’ money being thrown at contractors in a desperate last minute panic to complete on time.

Is it the scale of the projects? The politics involved? Sometimes the whole construction process seems to freeze in the headlamps of world scrutiny.

But it surely does not have to be that way. If, as some argue, we have in the UK some of the best programme and project managers in the world, London should not have to spend the next seven years sliding inexorably towards busted-budgets and bitter recriminations.

...buildings can be built off-site, in the regions, or even years in advance

Our experts came up with ten principles guaranteed to deliver a successful Olympic building programme:

Have a great plan

Before we get too hung up on the potential problems of delivering around £2bn of construction work, Tom Taylor, chairman of the Association for Project Managers and founder partner of consultant Buro Four, says we should recognise the worth of what has already been achieved.

“You have to say that the project management of the bid, and the construction element within it, was superb. It won us the Games,” he says. “Do not underestimate the International Olympic Committee (IOC) audit. They crawled all over that bid and reckoned it would work. So we already have an excellent, well worked-out plan, and that is a great start for any project.”

Don’t fiddle with it

It is an unhappy fact that the more high profile the project, the more likely it is that people will want to meddle with the design. In so doing, the meddlers add to costs, undermine the efficiency of the original design, deflate morale and add to construction time.

Barry Winterton, director of sports and leisure at Franklin Andrews, which acted as cost consultant for the London 2012 bid team, says the key to avoiding all this is careful management of the brief: “With the Olympics you are dealing with a very large number of stakeholders,” he says, pointing out that as well as the spectators, athletes and media who will use the facilities, there is also the government, the LDA, LOCOG (London Organising Committee for the Olympic games), the Olympic Delivery Authority, the British Olympic Association and the IOC to consider.

“All want 2012 to be the best Olympics ever,” says Winterton; “but they will all have different opinions on how that is to be achieved. It will be absolutely essential therefore to get the brief right, and to get it signed off early by all parties. You have to make sure everybody understands the consequences of changing their minds and the impact it will have on timing and costs.”

Understand who is in charge

Experts in the field are understandably wary of criticising potential clients, but it is clear that many are concerned about a potential plethora of client bodies. “It has to be crystal clear who is in charge of what,” says one; “and at the moment I am not convinced that is the case.”

In theory, the ODA will act as the main client body, although in the meantime the LDA is already handling a number of infrastructure projects and the development of the Aquatics centre. Associated projects, such as the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, add to the list of clients.

Bernard Ainsworth, director of major projects, Atkins, remains sanguine, however: “It is important that there is one client for delivery of infrastructure.

UK designers and contractors are flexible, but they work best when given clear instructions. We are hopeful that the ODA will give that clear lead.”

The reason Athens cost so much to stage was that every decision had to go back to the top

Tim Urquhart

Strike the right attitude

Atkins intends to bid for the Olympic Park and Ainsworth is clear about how it can be made to work: “The best way to deliver complex, fixed-date projects is to have everyone involved working as one highly committed team,” he says. “Client, designer, consultants and contractor, from top to bottom, must come to work every morning committed to working as a team towards a single goal.

I don’t think there is any one procurement route that guarantees that – and whatever route you choose there will inevitably be tensions between the various parties. But tensions will not become breaking points if you pick the right people and enable them to work as one.”

Start soon

First things first, says Jeremy Edge, director of consulting at Atisreal and soon to be head of planning at Knight Frank. “There are businesses on the existing Olympic sites which need relocating. It shouldn’t be a problem – there is plenty of space for them in the Thames Gateway, but it must happen quickly, via compulsory purchase orders if necessary, so that land assembly can happen. It is difficult to get cracking if you do not have full, vacant possession.”

He adds: “There are several things which can and should happen early – burying power lines across the Lea Valley for example, and getting the civil infrastructure in quickly.

“If, come 2012, there is a shortage of contractors, some could do rather too well for themselves – and that will do nothing for cost control. The sooner we start, the less likely that it will be.”

Strengthen supply chains

The prospect of around £2bn of construction, much of it completing at the same time, does not worry our experts. As Ainsworth puts it: UK construction “is big enough to handle it”. And Allen Wilen, economic director of the Construction Products Association, agrees: “£2.5bn over about five years represents an increase in construction turnover of about 0.5%. This in an industry which has been experiencing 3% annual growth for some time.

“What we do say though is that there will be a concentration of work in one part of London at a time when Crossrail and other large projects such as the redevelopments of Kings Cross, Paddington Basin and London Bridge, may also be underway.

“So now is the time for clients and their advisors to build strong supply chains. Time and effort spent on supplier relationships is seldom wasted and if there are pinch points in supply as 2012 approaches, that effort will repay clients handsomely.”

Streamline planning

A special Joint Planning Authorities Team (JPAT) acting on behalf of the London Boroughs of Newham, Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest, processed the LDA’s Olympic & Legacy planning applications in January. Clearly essential for the bid, this can-do spirit of co-operation looks set to continue to pay dividends. Wilen says: “We don’t want any last-minute planning delays, although it is very encouraging how the process has been streamlined so far and the positive attitude with which this potential snag is being dealt with.”

Fail to invest now, and skill-shortages will inevitably drive up costs as the Games approach

Tom Taylor

Delegate

Delegate, says Tim Urquhart, head of project management for Bovis Len Lease in New South Wales, and the man who was development manager for the Sydney Olympic Park.

“The reason Athens cost so much to stage was that every decision had to go back to the top. The people on the ground who understood were unable to introduce efficiencies. It is impossible if every idea has to be approved by a central committee. Decision making should happen

at the lowest possible level with delegated authority given to middle management.

Invest in skills

Taylor’s Buro Four was involved in some aspects of Manchester’s preparation for the Commonwealth games and knows what happens when a range of projects near completion simultaneously. “Of course there were skills shortages. You had plasterers, for example, working 24 hours, and as soon as they finished one job they were carted off to another.

“UK construction is actually quite good at surviving crises like that, but clearly it would pay to invest in skills now, and the

2012 Games gives us a superb opportunity. Just as the coming years will see youngsters inspired to compete as athletes, getting involved in building the Olympics could encourage many young people to enter construction. We already have a shortage of basic skills in construction. The unions especially should use the Olympics to focus minds on putting that right. Fail to invest now, and skill-shortages will inevitably drive up costs as the Games approach.”

Leave a legacy

Good facilities, on time and on budget, will ensure that the Olympic construction programme will be hailed a gleaming success – initially at least. But the shine could fade pretty quickly if the buildings and infrastructure involved are not seen to have a continuing usefulness after the athletes have gone home. “Legacy became a bid buzz-word, but it is important in so many ways,” says Winterton.

He explains that the 2012 bid had a ‘no white-elephants’ policy and that demountable buildings are key to solving the problem.

“You do not need four arenas in one place,” he says, “so it would make sense, for example, to build a demountable arena somewhere outside London, use it, move it to London for the games and then relocate it afterwards. As well as avoiding the situation in Japan, where they were left with unused football stadia after the World Cup, it helps get away from the idea that the Games are only going to benefit London.”

He adds that the use of relocatable buildings should also help avoid the inevitable squeeze on construction resources: “The great thing about this approach is that the buildings can be built off-site, in the regions, or even years in advance. Anyone who doubts the technology should look at the scale of the village that is created for the Farnborough Air Show.

“Design and costing of these buildings will be vital though. They must be realistic and represent genuine good value.”