The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) announces the opening of the design competition for the London 2012 Olympic Games velopark.
The facility will include a permanent indoor track and a temporary purpose-built course for the Olympic BMX events, which will become part of the Olympic program for the first time at the Beijing 2008 Summer Games.
Following the Games the site will used to house a new road cycle circuit and mountain bike course and will be connected to the Sustrans national cycle route network.
A nationwide school competition is to be launched in April for children to submit their ideas for the park and the winning school will work with the design team on the legacy format. The design team is expected to be appointed in the summer.
Manny Lewis, chief executive of the London Development Agency (LDA) said, “while the velopark will provide a world class sporting venue for visitors during the Games, its effect on Londoners afterwards will be just as important.
“The permanent cycling facilities that will remain in legacy will be a superb provision for amateur and professional cyclists alike. It is essential that we use the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games to improve the health of Londoners by stimulating their sporting imagination”.
Meanwhile The British Parliament’s Transport Committee said Tuesday that London 2012 transport link plans are vague and the ODA, the agency in charge of building new venues and infrastructure for the Games, has shown no urgency in drawing up a more detailed blueprint.
The British parliamentary committee said in a report, “we are concerned to see that the plans for delivery (of most forms of transport) remain vague, and the ODA is not exhibiting any sense of urgency about producing more detailed plans”.
The report said, “it is crucial that the transport systems put into place are robust enough to allow for major failures in parts of the system without the entire system collapsing”.
Reuters reports the committee urged the ODA to come up with plans to use London’s waterways more effectively to transport passengers and staff to the Games. It accused the ODA of failing to put enough importance on providing a legacy of transport improvements for London once the Games are over.
