Organizers of the London 2012 Summer Olympic games have defended comments from Jack Lemley, the former chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) who quit his post last month.
Reuters reports that Lemley was quoted as saying in the Idaho Statesman newspaper that he resigned because of fears that political rows would delay projects and raise costs, spoiling his reputation of being able to deliver projects on time and on budget. He said, “I went there to build things, not to sit and talk about it. So I felt it best to leave the post and come home”. Lemley is an American.
Lemley originally said his reason for stepping down from the ODA was that his United States-based construction company was busy with other projects around the world, but admitted it was growing frustration which persuaded him to resign.
He said this included the continuing debate about the future use of the Olympic Stadium after the Games and whether it should be retained as an 80,000-seat facility, with a Premiership football club as the anchor tenant, or reduced to a 25,000-sea athletics venue as officials promised during the bid.
He also said relocating businesses from the Olympic Park site was proving difficult. “Some of the people were happy to move and some of them weren’t. In any event, there was a huge amount of local politics. Those are the kind of things that confuse and frustrate the process”.
The ODA and London 2012 played down the impact of Lemley’s comments Wednesday. A spokesman from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport said, “Jack Lemley set out the reasons for his resignation when he left the ODA. This project has been defined by strong political cooperation from the outset and that remains the case. It is the strength of the project that we are having a debate about legacy now rather than in the future. This is what makes London 2012 unique. By any analysis we have made a strong start and hit all our major milestones”.
A LOCOG spokeswoman told Reuters Wednesday, “it’s absolutely right and proper that we have the debate now on what will be the legacy for the next 100 years. The time for debate is now and that’s what we are doing…It’s the first time an Olympics hosting city has had these debates so early in the project, nearly six years before the start of the Games”.
Lemley was appointed Chairman of the ODA in 2005.
