Olympics chief quit ‘over local politics’
The London 2012 Olympics have been dealt a serious blow after the former chairman said he quit the project because of political squabbling.
Jack Lemley, 71, resigned as chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) two weeks ago, publicly citing a desire to get back to his international construction company.
But in an interview with his local newspaper in the US, he blamed local politics for his sudden departure only 11 months into a four-year contract.
“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 told the Idaho Statesman.
One bone of contention was what to do with the 80,000-seat Olympic stadium after the games, he said. Officials planned for it to be downsized to hold 25,000 when the games were over.
But Mr Lemley said local politicians wanted to turn it into a football stadium and keep its original capacity. He suggested this would not be possible, saying: “A football field is not compatible with an athletic stadium.”
Another cause for concern was the takeover of land for Olympic buildings in Stratford, east London. “There was a huge amount of local politics. Those are the kind of things that confuse and frustrate the process,” he said.
Mr Lemley was in charge of the construction of the Channel Tunnel between 1989 and 1993 and was concerned the delays to the London 2012 games and the ballooning budget would damage his reputation for delivering the large construction project on time.
Reports suggest the original £2.4 billion budget for the main Olympic structures has gone up to nearly £5 billion, and deadlines for several projects have already been put back.
“I felt it was better to come home now than face that in five or six years,” Mr Lemley said.
A spokesman for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) said the businessman had set out the reasons for his resignation when he left the ODA on October 18th.
“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,” he said.
Dee Docey, the Liberal Democrat Olympic spokeswoman on the London assembly, said Mr Lemley’s comments suggested he was not the right many for the job anyway.
“I am very disappointed that Jack Lemley does not appear to have understood from the start that this job would involve politics and business at the highest level,” she said.
“If at the first sign of a hurdle he ran back to America with his tail between his legs, then maybe he was not the right man for the job in the first place.”
