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Politics threaten London 2012 progress

(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-11-01 10:54

LONDON - The U.S. engineer drafted in to oversee construction for the London 2012 Olympics said he quit because of fears that political rows would delay projects and raise costs.

Jack Lemley, who resigned as chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority on Oct 18, told the Idaho Statesman newspaper it was the first time he had walked away from a construction project.

"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," he said in comments published on Tuesday.

Lemley, a 71-year-old building veteran, listed a number of squabbles that kept hindering his projects, which included an 80,000-seat athletic stadium for track-and-field events.

He said it was supposed to be built so it could be shrunk to a 25,000-seat stadium after the Games, but local politicians wanted to convert it into a football stadium instead.

"A football field is not compatible with an athletic stadium," Lemley said, noting that debates were ongoing about how it should be built.

Another problem was relocating businesses from areas of land where construction for the tournament was planned.

FRUSTRATED PROCESS

"Some of the people were happy to move, and some of them weren't," Lemley said. "In any event, there was a huge amount of local politics. Those are the kind of things that confuse and frustrate the process."

The engineer, who coordinated the construction of the Channel Tunnel between Britain and France, said he did not want to spoil his reputation of being able to deliver projects on time and on budget, the Idaho Statesman reported.

"I felt it was better to come home now than face that in five or six years," Lemley said.

At the time of his resignation, Lemley said in a statement he wanted to spend more time in the United States to focus on his business interests there.

Lemley was appointed in November 2005 by Olympic Minister Tessa Jowell on an initial four-year contract.