Big boost for West Ham hopes of taking over Olympic Stadium

By Tom Degun in London

July 20 – West Ham United’s hopes of taking over the Olympic Stadium after the London 2012 Games today received a major boost from the owners of Westfield, who are building a new multi-million shoping centre in the shadow of the arena.

John Burton, the director of Stratford City for Westfield, told the London Assembly that he believes the Premier League club would be a suitable candidate to take over the Stadium and that West Ham could work well with the partnership with the shopping centre to ensure that their interests do not conflict with one another.

There has been a large amount of interest expressed in taking over the Olympic Stadium following the London 2012 Games including a strong bid from American entertainment giant AEG who operate the O2 Arena.

But Burton feels that West Ham provide the most logical anchor tenants of the stadium in order to ensure that it is regularly used after the Games and stressed the importance of making sure that the Stadium or the Olympic Park does not become a white elephant.

Burton said: “We must ensure that after the London 2012 Games are over, the Stadium and the park are back in use as quickly as possible.

“Obviously there will be a period where the stadium must be closed after the Games but it must come straight back into use and I think that West Ham provide the most logical candidate to take over the stadium.”

There had beens speculation that Westfield, the company founded by Football Federation Australia chairman Frank Lowy, would block West Ham’s plan to take over the Stadium because of the fears of thousands of fans disrupting the area on a regular basis.

Burton claimed that this was not the case as long as West Ham were prepared to work closely with them.

He said: We are not overly concerned about who the future owners of the Stadium are as long as they provide it with a sustainable future and” are willing to work in partnership with us so they we will both benefit by working with each other.”

Burton stated one such example of where working with the Stadium owners is paramount would be around Christmas which is the busiest shopping time of the year for Westfield, which is set to be the biggest shopping centre in Europe when it opens in 2011 with 2.9 million square foot retail and leisure space.

He said: “If West Ham had a football match on one our busiest shopping days in Christmas, we would expect to work with West Ham a year advance and say, ‘If you are planning a game on our busiest day of the year, lets talk now about how we can bring a large amount of people to both events.’

“We would obviously need to look at things like parking to make sure that football fans don’t monopolise shopper’s parking space and generally work together well in advance of big events to find solutions.

“That is the whole purpose of claiming that we can work with any Olympic stadium tenant provided we have sufficient time to work on those issues.”

Burton claimed that the Main Press Centre (MPC) could in fact be the most troublesome venue in the Olympic Park to fill after London 2012 as it has now logical tenant to take ownership of it.

He said: “The media centre could well be the most difficult venue to fill after the Games partly because it doesn’t have a logical next step.

“Whether it should be a media facility, whether it should be an educational facility or whether it should be a medical facility or something like that; I think it will take time to decide.

“I wouldn’t comment on what it should be used for but I think the biggest problem for the media centre for a developer is accessibility.

“There are a limited number of car parking spots available and to improve its prospects of a sustainable legacy after the 2012, accessibility to the venue needs to be addressed.”

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