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• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 25 April 2007

So that does mean that from time to time you might say to the national elite body, `We understand what you want, but the best needs of the area are served by doing something different from that'. Can you give an example of that?

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 25 April 2007

And there are long term plans for financing these facilities beyond the Games, because, as we know, swimming pools for instance, are very expensive for somebody to take on, long term?

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 25 April 2007

So, for instance, in Hackney, there will be the opportunity for local communities perhaps to take over football fields, pitches and that sort of thing there?

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 25 April 2007

So it has been sorted now and it will be finished by September? That is what you are saying?

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 25 April 2007

I was listening to what you were saying to John Biggs and I take on board that you have steering groups of all sorts looking at how you develop the facilities with their legacy beyond the Games in mind. Can I just seek some clarification then? Are you saying that you already have teams of people in place who are organising proper financial and business plans for these venues, so they can be seamlessly transferred after the Games to groups who will then be taking them on to use them in the future?

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 25 April 2007

So the newts will be rehoused?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 25 April 2007

You talk about changing scope as being a risk. I am a representative for the area and my constituents have a whole range of regeneration aspirations from the Games. If we take the example of bridges, which you cited as being quite an expensive part of your work, as I understand it there is some unhappiness at present that some of the bridge proposals are presented as being temporary. I am pretty sure it would be relatively cheaper to build a bridge which had a life of 12 weeks in 2012 as against a bridge which had a life of...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 25 April 2007

On this part of the question then, you say the biggest risk is about the change in peoples' specification for the work. I have been involved in regeneration projects where the biggest risk turned out to be build cost inflation. You are not figuring that as being a big contributor?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 25 April 2007

The basic lesson from Wembley is that a fixed cost contract is a bit of a mirage in a scenario like this.

• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 25 April 2007

Finally, given that you have milestones and key milestones and a set date to achieve it, would it not have been better to have set up bonus payments rather than contingency sums, given that is going to be the name of the game - getting to key stages at key times at critical points? Clearly we would rather be giving them money for achieving that, rather than spending their time making those claims, which invariably half the building trade does.