Former mayor Ken Livingstone attacks Tottenham's Olympic Stadium plans

Livingstone criticises Spurs on environmental grounds
Chief executive of Bromley council backs Spurs

Ken Livingstone, the former mayor of London who in 2005 played a key role in bringing the 2012 Olympics to London, has attacked Tottenham Hotspur's bid to take over the main stadium in Stratford.

However, the chief executive of Bromley council has backed Tottenham's plan to redevelop Crystal Palace to leave an athletics legacy while rebuilding the Olympic Stadium to host only football. West Ham United's rival bid would keep athletics at the Olympic Stadium.

Livingstone, who will stand for mayor in 2012, said the Olympic Stadium had been designed and chosen on sustainability grounds and that to knock it down, as Spurs propose to do, would have "horrendous" consequences.

"If they decide to go for West Ham, then you have football and athletics there, that's fine," he told the local government publication the MJ. "I would be horrified at the thought, if Tottenham get it, that you demolish a stadium we've just spent 400m building and then build a new one, because the carbon cost of a stadium is horrendous.

"We used half the normal amount of steel and concrete that you would use on a stadium of that size and there were environmental reasons for doing that. To demolish it? There's a carbon-footprint cost here which is just not acceptable."

Doug Patterson, the chief executive of the London borough of Bromley, which owns the freehold on Crystal Palace Park, said he would meet Spurs officials this week.

"The Spurs plans would be positive for the area because I am not sure what else would happen," he said. "There are not any other significant plans. Nobody has got the money to spruce up Crystal Palace. South Londoners would benefit with the Spurs plans. They would not have any direct benefit from the West Ham plans."

If Spurs win the backing of the Olympic Park Legacy Company, the dilapidated athletics stadium at Crystal Palace will benefit from a! 25,000- capacity refurbishment.

On Monday Crystal Palace Football Club declared an interest in moving from Selhurst Park to the athletics stadium. Palace have tried to move to the site before but have not been able to gain planning permission. Only recently, under a consortium led by Steve Parish, have they managed to reunite their ground, Selhurst Park, and the club under the same ownership.

European Athletics has also weighed in on the stadium issue, following the lead of the International Olympic Committee.

"Keeping the athletics track must be part of any future plans for the Olympic Stadium," Hansjrg Wirz, the EA president, said in a statement. "London needs a high-quality venue that has the potential to host future European Athletics Championships and world championships."

Patterson, who said Tottenham would take Crystal Palace, which opened in 1964, back to its "previous standards", said the venue could also be adapted to host the world championships.


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