Downing Street announced Wednesday Prime Minister Tony Blair will fly to Singapore to support London’s bid for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games. Blaire will talk to International Olympic Committee (IOC) members on the eve of the July 6 decision, just 24 hours before he is due to host the G8 summit at Gleneagles in Scotland.
The premier will be on board his chartered British Airways 777 jet when the 2012 host city is announced. His officials spokesman said he would be “on the ground” in Singapore for two days in the run-up to the IOC vote.
Blair said, “London’s bid is important to me, the government, and to our country and I would be immensely proud to help bring the Games back to London for the first time in 64 years”.
London 2012 head Sebastian Coe said, “this is a great news and shows the fantastic commitment of the Prime Minister to London’s bid, particularly given his heavy schedule around the G8 at that time.”
Meanwhile, London’s mayor Ken Livingstone has ensured that the London Eye, a centrepiece of London’s 2012 bid, has been saved. Earlier it was reported that the Eye’s owners had claimed they were faced with eviction due to a massive rent hike, but the site’s landlord, the South Bank Centre (SBC), denied it was raising the rent for the site from 65,000 pounds a year to 2.5 million pounds.
Livingstone said if the row over rent was not resolved soon he would use his powers to ask the London Development Corporation to issue a compulsory purchase order.
Livingstone was also furious after the Evening Standard revealed a bid by Paris to take advantage of the row and move the Eye to Paris. The French boasted they would use the wheel as the centrepiece of their 2012 bid.
But Livingstone ensured the Eye would stay when he said, “it may very well be, if matters can’t be resolved soon, we would move very quickly to a compulsory purchase of the London Eye”.
A spokesman for the SBC said it had nothing further to add to its original statement which said there was “no likelihood” of the Eye facing eviction.
City Hall sources said it was hoped the Mayor’s threat alone would be enough to force an end to the row. But they said there was no doubt he would be willing to impose a compulsory purchase order if the SBC refused to back down.
Paris 2012 head Philippe Baudillon told reporters at the French consulate in London “Paris 2012 has absolutely no interest in anything to do with the London Eye. It’s absolute nonsense, it’s laughable”, he said.
The Mayor is also in the centre of a row with firms over the compensation they are being offered to make way for the 2012 Games. He has accused them of inflating the number of jobs at stake and of attempting to hold the 2012 bid for ransom by demanding premium rates for their land, saying some firms were seeking a “huge windfall”.
According to the Evening Standard the Mayor said the London Development Agency (LDA) was in “detailed private negotiations” with a number of firms in the run up to the July 6 host city decision. If London wins the Games the LDA will be able to compulsorily purchase the 250 acres of land required – with firms getting the “market value”.
Businesses fear they will be forced out by 2007 – but have to wait five years for a land tribunal to decided on the amount of compensation they will receive because of long-jams in the system, reports the newspaper.
