Games pool in danger of being expensive hole to fill
The Zaha Hadid-designed Aquatics Centre provides the wow factor for London's Olympics but its legacy is contentious
Its striking undulating curves will be the first thing seen by ticket holders entering the Olympic Park. Those building the venues that will house the largest sporting event on these shores are hopeful the Zaha Hadid-designed Aquatics Centre will be one of the defining images they takeaway.
But the body faced with the difficult task of ensuring a long-term legacy for the venues are more concerned that it does not become a monument to the hubris of those who bequeathed them the facility. The 268m structure, which has soared in cost from the 73m originally cited in London's bid book, will contain two 50-metre pools, a 25m diving pool and associated training facilities, and will fill a gaping hole in the provision of elite facilities for swimmers in the capital.
The tit-for-tat over the future of the Olympic Stadium has obscured the fact that the body responsible for deciding its future this week slipped out an invitation to tender for the Aquatics Centre. Thrown in at the deep end, Margaret Ford, the Olympic Park Legacy Company chair pondering offers for the stadium, is well aware the fractious debate over the future of the park will not end when either West Ham or Tottenham Hotspur get the nod.
For an event that was largely awarded on its legacy promises, the next few months will be key to deciding whether the 2012 Games will usher in the bold regeneration of London's East End and a string of first-class elite sport venues or an increasing drain on the public purse propping up a mixed bag of facilities.
The Aquatics Centre is the last venue to go to market and is potentially the most challenging in terms of making it work as a facility that can meet the needs of elite athletes and community users as well as bringing enough punters through the doors to pay its way.
"The difference between this and the Olympic Stadium is that there is a revenue! stream from the stadium that enables us to make a loan," said Kim Bromley-Derry, the chief executive of Newham council.
"The aquatics centre needs a bit more work for us to ensure there is a revenue stream to ensure that we don't end up not just with a white elephant but one that costs us an awful lot of money to keep."
Following the Games, when capacity will be reduced from 17,500 to 2,500, the Aquatics Centre is not due to reopen until January 2014 and will cost an estimated 1m a year to run. According to its supporters, it will be a much-needed facility in a capital where Olympic-size pools are shamefully thin on the ground, acting as a magnet for the new generation of swimmers who will be inspired by the exploits of Rebecca Adlington and co, and as a facility for the wider community.
To its detractors, it risks being a beautiful but underused folly that will require a deep pool of public subsidy to operate and will not provide the means to attract the 800,000-plus annual visitors that the OPLC predicts in its memorandum of information.
The Aquatics Centre has a backstory as undulating as its roof. Envisaged from the start as the venue that would provide the "wow" factor the functional, clean lines of the stadium lacked, the costs began to soar almost as soon as the Hadid design was accepted. The design was inherited by the Olympic Delivery Authority, which immediately found it was too big for a constrained, contaminated site. The ODA has admitted that it has proved the most challenging of the venues on the Park, such is the complexity of the design and the difficulty of marrying that with the demands of Olympic organisers.
The cost increased by another 11m in the three months to November according to the latest figures, bucking the downward trend elsewhere on the Park.
A key bone of contention has been the provision of leisure facilities that might attract local users. Newham council was keen the ODA build into its design the possibility to add wave machines and slides. B! ut becau se of the increased cost and the constraints of the building, the plea was ignored. Instead, those bidding for the pool will be asked to consider how they could provide "portable" leisure features to make it more attractive to families. "The existing plans for the Aquatics Centre have significant community facilities in them including two 50m pools, with moveable floors and booms to allow for teaching, a 25m diving pool and 2,500 seats," an OPLC spokesman said. "In addition, we are seeking an operator which will also provide a range of portable water features and inflatable equipment to maximise the leisure offer within the building."
David Sparkes, British Swimming's chief executive, said: "What we know is that to have some leisure water can be helpful but what is far more important is to have flexible water where we can change the depth. It [leisure water] would have been nice to have but I don't think it's critical to make the difference between it paying for itself and not."
The OPLC has accepted it will have to cross-subsidise the pool in some way, while ongoing funding will be required on an annual basis. Some of the 217m that Ford secured from the government to pay for post-Games conversion work may have to be offered to help sweeten the deal. But Sparkes cautions against a gloomy prognosis: "There is a cost to pools in the same way as there is a cost to libraries and museums. It's a public asset. There was never a moment when we didn't believe we would need a subsidy for the pool. Every public pool needs a subsidy."
The legacy planning had shown a "clarity of thought and purpose," he said. There are plans underway to bring the 2016 European Championships to London and Sparkes is convinced that the pool will prove a magnet for swimmers from the immediate vicinity and across London.
"This is without doubt, the finest pool in the country. It will be the Twickenham of swimming for many years to come. Where you build a fabulous facility, you drive people to that facility," he s! aid.
"We want to be at the heart of this. Our challenge will be to manage that facility with the minimum cost to the public purse."
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