I went to the Olympic park in East London this morning and i can testify to the fact that it is one very well ordered site. Driving round, all the materials were neatly stored, pedestrians and vehicles were carefully segregated and I don't think it was a show put on for visitors. I've written about these features before, see here but then I had to take them on trust (albeit from ODA safety head Lawrence Waterman, who is as trustworthy as the come); good to see it first hand.
Construction progress is also impressive, the structure of the main stadium is pretty well complete, Zaha Hadid's floating roof for the aquatics centre is taking shape and the velodrome piling is complete. The lift cores for the Olympic village blocks (which will eventually be sold off as des-res flats) are also up, along with the frame of the press centre.
I was there because safety minister Lord McKenzie was touring the occupational helath centre which mixes the standard health surveillance the contractors are obliged to do anyway with some remarkable work (for the construction sector) trying to get builders to take their health seriously. This includes toolbox talks with a pair of fake testicles, to teach labourers to check their own for cancer, and a competition to find the strongest men and women on the site (using a grip test, which is a very good tell-tale for upper limb disorders).
McKenzie said he was impressed. I asked him if this sort of service could be mandated for all major publicly-funded projects, since there are a fair few of those coming up - all those accelerated public works the government has green-lit to help construction and civil engineering firms weather the recession - and the reason it's there on the Olympics is because the ODA as client paid for it.
He said he would go away and "talk about it", which is something.
Louis
No comments:
Post a Comment