For and Against: will London 2012 leave a lasting engineering legacy?

The engineering legacy of the Olympics is, I think, not purely a technical one. In this context I am convinced that the real effect that will be handed down to the nation is that the British engineering community has been able to slay the dragon of “we do not do major projects well in this country”. The outcome will be that everybody will say: “Hasn’t this gone well?” To which my response as chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) will be “yes”. What the ODA has achieved is to demonstrate that if you want complex major engineering projects done well then you can have every confidence in turning to British companies. This is because the Olympic ‘big build’ in London has been done within budget and to time. And it leaves a meaningful legacy for London.

The success of the construction project has been the result of the dedication of the ODA, the 40,000 people who have worked on the Olympic Park and Athletes’ Village and the thousands of businesses and suppliers who contributed from across the UK. Together we have delivered a world-class performance. The area around the Olympic Park has changed beyond recognition and I am sure that it will continue to be a fantastic new quarter of London for decades to come.

London 2012 is not the most complex engineering project in the world by any means, but there have been particular challenges here, such as Zaha Hadid’s Aquatics Centre, a classic example of an iconic building that has been created with architecture first and then requires the engineers to make it work.

The stadium itself is fantastic because it is so simple. What everyone worries about when building an Olympic stadium is being left with a giant white elephant. Our design was driven by the question of how you take it apart after the event. And I think that this draws comparison with the modern motorcar. The weakness of the British motor industry used to be that we constantly added bits on, which made the car difficult to maintain. Whereas the Japanese said, “let’s work this from inside out”. They asked how the car was going to be maintained. With the London 2012 stadium, the focus was on how to take it apart, which meant that it was actually very easy to build. The Velodrome is one of the most environmentally successful buildings we have, and in terms of its legacy it will work extremely well. It also works well in terms of its energy and lighting use, which are important factors with any modern building.

We’ve also created 3,000 new homes in London to the highest environmental standards - higher than any other development that’s taking place in London at the moment. In legacy, the plans are already in place to put in another 7,000 over the next 15-20 years, as the market allows. We’ve created some new products through the process of setting objectives - again in the environmental area - for the supply chain.

The ODA has also done something very unusual, which is to create a ‘Learning Legacy’. It’s very rare for a project such as London 2012 to capture the knowledge gained before the project is finished, but we have made a conscious effort to do that so we will be able to pass along information about what worked and what didn’t.

But the real tangible benefit is a reinforcement of self-confidence in our ability to deliver this sort of major project. If you can deliver that confidence to politicians and the wider decision makers, it becomes easier to get their support when we wish to create the next major piece of infrastructure, whether that is something like a nuclear power station or another HS2. What this means is that we know that we have an industry that is able to deliver successfully and that is the key to getting future support and approval to go ahead with big infrastructure projects, delivered properly, on time, within budget and with public approval.