Comments on: Greenwich Park: Warm Words v Cold Print

By: Andrew Gilligan

Andrew Gilligan — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 16:41:25 +0000

My email address is andrew.gilligan@telegraph.co.uk. Look forward to hearing from you.

By: Deniable Agent

Deniable Agent — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 13:59:48 +0000

Bang on as usual…. trying to contact you.

By: Indigo

Indigo — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 11:35:05 +0000

It is very strange but this Government still suffers from excessive optimism. It doesn't do contingency plans or realistic budgeting at all well. I was one of the members of the public who attended a Select Committee hearing into the New Millennium Experience Company's plans for the Dome and heard Peter Mandelson (Minister without Portfolio) tell the Committee that "there would not be an overall cost overrun" (later the NMEC admitted that there would be cost over-runs of £26 million), and that the Company would deliver the Experience within the agreed budget. The Select Committee concluded: "We found both the Company and Mr Mandelson reluctant to elaborate about their contingency plans, if indeed such contingency plans have been prepared as they should have been ... We conclude that a comprehensive contingency plan has not yet reached final form." Then "By the time that Mr Gerbeau arrived at the Dome there was no contingency left in the budget. The Company was suffering from cashflow difficulties that had been exacerbated by the sponsors' failure to pay monies according to the contract schedules." Reading the debateof 28 January 1998 in Hansard reminds us that we have been here before. Mr Fraser: "I shall now turn to the financial and contingency plans—or, rather, to the absence of contingency plans. ... when we ask for details of contingency plans, we are greeted with intransigence. ... May I use this opportunity to ask the Minister for an update on the report of the Select Committee? Two important requests were made. The first was that a comprehensive contingency plan be completed by the New Millennium Experience Company as a matter of urgency." And we all know what happened in the end. Something like twice as much Lottery money was spent on the Dome than was planned.

By: Paul G

Paul G — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 07:11:06 +0000

A very interesting point Indigo. I went to the public meeting in the park earlier this year and did ask a LOCOG representative what contingency plans and budgets they had in place should there be any damage to the park or environment. Let me put your mind at rest; they have no contingency plans or budget because,as they told me, nothing will go wrong.
I also asked what would happen if construction uncovered anything of archeological interest and was told that there isn’t anything to find in the area in question.

By: Indigo

Indigo — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:32:55 +0000

Let no one be misled: for most of 2010 and 2011, much of the Park – first one bit, then another bit – will be a hard-hat area.

There will be lots more of those coy promotional pictures that we have got so sick of seeing (in the context of the Dome construction and the CrossRail extension) of middle-aged MPs and chamber of commerce officers wearing reflective jackets and yellow helmets grinning at the camera like small boys allowed to ride a digger. In the background will be – not the rolling acres of green grass and magnificent mature trees of England finest Baroque landscape and green space beloved of hundreds of Londoners – no, there will be ugliness and permanent destruction, in huge earth excavations and massive steel frameworks.

I want to hear more public discussion of LOCOG’s cunning plan to water the top of Greenwich Park until the bottom of the Park turns into a quagmire. Has LOCOG conducted a risk analysis of what happens to the foundations of the Queens House when all that water (to make it nice for half-ton horses to race across ONCE) reaches the National Maritime Museum?