Olympic Chief Visits Lavendon Group
Released 9th Jun, 2010
John Armitt, the Chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA), has been visiting East Midlands businesses that have won contracts to work on the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The ODA is the public body responsible for developing and building the new venues and infrastructure for the Games and their use after 2012.
Over 100 East Midlands businesses have already won contracts for the Games and John Armitt visited four of these businesses during his visit, which was organised by East Midlands Development Agency (emda). emda is encouraging businesses across the region to bid for contracts for the Games by registering on the www.competefor.com website.
Bespoke precast concrete specialist, Evans Concrete, near Alfreton in Derbyshire, has won a number of large contracts for the Olympic Park, amounting to several million pounds. They are currently manufacturing 600 parapets weighing up to 7 tonnes each, and 400 deck planks for bridges, each weighing 10 tonnes. The bridges will provide access to the Olympic Stadium and will remain in place after the 2012 Games.
The company is also working on the Aquatics Centre, as well as manufacturing stair treads at the main entrances of stations along the Docklands Light Railway which will be serving the Olympic Park site.
One of the major British success stories at the last two Olympic Games was the performance of the cycling team, and a Huthwaite based company is playing a key role in the construction of the Velodrome. Wood Newton specialises in providing high quality external facades.
The company has secured the prestigious contract to manufacture and install the external timber façade and composite timber roof of the distinctive double-curved structure of the velodrome, which has been designed to reflect the geometry of the cycling track.
Wood Newton is supplying and fixing tens of thousands of square metres of western red cedar and birch faced composite timber panels, along with other fixtures and fittings such as roof lights, in a contract which is worth several millions of pounds to the north Nottinghamshire business.
On the second day of his visit, Mr. Armitt travelled to Leicestershire to the Lavendon Group in Lutterworth, which provides powered access equipment to enable work to be undertaken safely at height. Lavendon Group has over 250 powered access platforms working on the Olympic Park site, which are supplied to numerous businesses for the development of the various construction projects currently underway.
Whilst in Leicestershire, Mr. Armitt also visited Fosse Liquitrol in Whetstone. The company has been supplying a range of oil and chemical spill prevention and clean up products and equipment. Fosse Liquitrol has provided a variety of products to the Olympic Park through its network of distributors, such as spill pallets, spill kits and absorbent pads, and also delivers on-site training and technical support to a number of contractors working on the site.
Mr Armitt’s visit concluded with a presentation at Leicester Tigers’ ground, where he talked to businesses from across the East Midlands about the opportunities that are available for them to supply products and services to the 2012 Games.
Speaking about his visit, John Armitt said: “Businesses from the East Midlands have already made the most of the golden opportunities that are available to companies across the UK. I have met a range of East Midlands companies of different sizes from various industries, which are all benefitting from supplying products and services for the project.
