LLDC CEO, David Goldstone gave evidence at the London Assembly Budget Monitoring sub-committee last week about the rising cost of the London Stadium and the impact of the failed retractable seating system.
He confirmed an extra £21m was spent on the doomed system last year and estimated costs could each as high £8m per year to move the seats backwards and forward unless a better solution can be found. Last month the London Mayor revealed that the stadium transformation costs had increased by £51m after the information was leaked in the press.
Speaking about the £51m increase Goldstone explained: “A chunk of it was to do with the very unfortunate failure of the seating contractor who had been hired to install new seating system that happened just before the Rugby world cup last summer. We were left with a partially installed system so we had to step in and make it ready for that event. The (retractable seating) had been a joint venture, one partner did the main design and another installed the system, one partner went bust and the other partner inherited it but wasn’t a suitable long term contractor. They took it forward during 2016 but we had to settle out with them in 2016 because they weren’t a suitable long term”
“The seating issues we have had in 2015 caused around about £21m of that (£51m) increase” Goldstone added, He then revealed more was spent on what he called discretionary stadium enhancements agreed by E20 such as better gangways for bigger music concert crowds, an enhanced lighting system so they can host more sports, increased the robustness of the pitch to hold more events and the large screen on the outside of the stadium which he claimed is a potential source of revenue in advertising and sponsorshi in the future. All those enhancements came to an additional £14m. A further £4m was spent on insurance and £12m is budgeted for contingency.
On the question of annual running costs of the retractable seating costing up to £8m per year to run Goldstone admitted that was an estimate of moving between football mode and athletics twice per year. He said it was an estimated cost but it was not a confirmed amount and they are in a tendering process at the moment for a long term operator to move the seats and they just received the tenders in at the last few days. Goldstone confirmed “We are not pretending it’s not an issue but we know what the confirmed costs will be in the near future”
The whole problem stems fro Seb Coes ridiculous thought that it had to be designed and built as purely an Athletics venue and keep those ruffian football fans away. Did he really think that after the euphoria if the games that Athletics could sustain such a venue? It should have been built in conjunction with a Football club I.e us so we got what we wanted after the games. We would not have had the public enquiry or this fuss and all parties (except that idiot Coe) would have been happy. Had we not got it it would still be the world’s largest pigeon loft.
It’s a nightmare … Incompetent Engineers . A bit like wpemploying Australians to build the new Wembley Stadium .
Yeah, but the real irony was that Wembley was built using German money!
Bob the Builder
Can we fix it?
Bob the Builder
Yes we can
Scoop, Muck and Dizzy and Rolly too
Lofty and Wendy, join the crew
Bob and the gang have so much fun
Working together, they get the job done
Bob the Builder
Can we fix it?
Bob the Builder
Yes we can!!!!!
😁😁
This whole thing has been a shambles from start to finish. If they’d just left it to a professionals, rather than a group of politicians & lords to sort out it would have been done & perfectly suitable by now.
The basic answer is the venue had to be converted from a perfect athletics venue but a totally unsuitable football venue into a slightly compromosed athletics & football venue.
The easiest way would have been to drop the pitch approx 2-3m & extend the lower tier permanent seating so it cut down the space between the outside of the running track & the stands (which is huge to accomodate Olympic commercial nonesense). This would leave a “wall” at the side of the track aporox 2.5m high on the straights (although sight lines would still allow people to view most of the action even in the outside lanes) & circa 6m at the bends (not suitable for viewing athletics but i’m sure the lower bowl BM & STB stands could be closed during track meetings as the capacity is unlikely to be require after next summer World Champs). This wall could then be used as the mounting for a system as show below which would bring the lower bowl seating to withing a 2-3 meters of the pitch (closer than most purpose built grounds).
https://youtu.be/gKNDnQCUBbc
They should also have sorted out the internal segregation, not only with away fans but between top & bottom tiers (as currently many people are relocating throughout the game) by simply extending the corporate facilities mezzanine floor round the whole stadium & put on a better external “cladding” as the stadium will be torture in winter.
RANT OVER.
They should be tendering for a new seating design so the seats can be moved in and out on rollers in the long term it has to be cheaper than £8m a year plus all the lost days of revenue when the Stadium is unusable, presumably at least a month per year.