Balfour Beaty as won the contract to convert London’s 80,000-seat Olympic Stadium into the new home of West Ham United. The £154m deal for the Stratford venue includes a £41m contract awarded in the summer to create the largest cantilevered roof in the world, measuring 84 metres at its widest point. The cost of the Olympic Stadium has risen to more than £580m. Mayor Boris Johnson says there will be no more costs to the city.
A cultural and educational hub is to be constructed on the site of London’s 2012 Olympics inspired by the collection of museums, arts venues and world-class universities built in South Kensington as a legacy to the 1851 Great Exhibition. The multimillion pound project, which its architects claim could create 10,000 jobs, will provide a second campus for University College London and additional gallery space for the Victoria and Albert Museum on land between the Olympic Stadium and Stratford station. UCL, which has long wanted to extend its operations further east, was wooed by London mayor Boris Johnson after the collapse of previous negotiations with Newham Council to open a second campus next to the Olympic Park.
