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Let's Show Them What We Can Do...

The circus is back in town. With the Beijing Olympics set to get underway on Friday, thoughts will soon turn to London’s hosting of 2012. As we have seen already in Beijing and of London’s successful bid, the press are quick to jump on problems such as soaring costs, pollution and security. But is there any hope that 2012 will prove we can do this type of thing well? Could it even turn out to be a successful showcase for new electrical products?

In some ways London is a terrible choice for the Olympic Games. There can hardly have been another venue city that would have attracted so much criticism from its own country-folk. A few hours after the games were awarded to London, message boards and columnists were suggesting the whole country will have to plough money into this fanciful London festival to the detriment of everyone else.

It would seem London is not well-liked nation-wide, rather grimly accepted as a hot, cramped, dirty corner of the island which happens to have a magnetic pull on politicians, tourists and media types and is therefore regarded as the capital.

Add to this the instantaneous appearance of cynicism whenever an ambitious, high-profile construction project is announced and you can see the London Olympics and all those associated with it will probably come in for a rough ride. Even the logo nearly caused riots. The Millennium Dome, Wembley, Terminal 5…London 2012?

So why would a contractor or manufacturer want to get involved with the Olympics? Well, the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) and London Organising Committee (LOCOG) expect to allocate more than £6bn of work as part of 75,000 business opportunities in the lead up to the 2012 games. There will of course be the big industry players getting involved, but so far 70% of the companies who have won contracts are classed as small or medium sized and 98% of these are based in the UK. Only £2bn of the six has already been allocated, so there is still plenty to scrap over.

It would be great to see the country pulling together to make the event the exciting opportunity it should be, both for businesses and the public. 800,000 spectators are expected to attend the London Olympics per day. What a platform to showcase new products from such a wide field; lighting, cabling, HVAC, security, sensors, power, automation, well pretty much every area of the electrical industry!

2012 has the potential to be a real shot in the arm for the whole country. Not just London, not just the south of England, not just England. As images of China’s efforts start to fill up our screens over the next few weeks and we start to get a grasp of the sheer scale of the undertaking, rather than think, “How on Earth are we going to do that, on time, on budget?” it would make a nice change to be a little less typically British for a change and say, “We can do that better.”

Enjoy the newsletter,

Richard Scott
Editor


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