Brady attacks Spurs stadium plan 08/02/2011 |
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West Ham vice-chairman Karren Brady has labelled Tottenham's plan to demolish London's Olympic Stadium once the 2012 Games are over a "corporate crime".
West Ham, which is vying with Spurs to move into the east London stadium, has vowed to keep the athletics track, while Tottenham wants to completely rebuild the venue without track and field facilities.
Brady told the BBC: "It's a corporate crime to spend £500m on a stadium and, just four weeks after the Games have finished, bring the bulldozers in."
However, Spurs chairman Daniel Levy branded Brady's claims "irresponsible".
He said in a statement: "A lot of emotive phrasing has been used regarding the dismantling of the stadium and it is scaremongering.
"Accusations that we would demolish £500m of stadium are hugely inaccurate and highly irresponsible and I want to be very clear on this issue. Our proposal will retain around £420m worth of the Olympic Stadium, and we will re-use or recycle the £80m that will be dismantled with zero landfill.
"It is also important to remember that two-thirds of the Olympic Stadium, under the original legacy plan, was to be dismantled – it was not designed to be a permanent structure.
"The original 2012 legacy promised to dismantle all of the stadium above ground leaving a sunken 25,000-capacity athletics arena – that has proved unviable.
"Recent scaremongering conveniently forgets this fact."
A decision on the future of the Olympic Park site is expected this week.
An athletics legacy was one of the key promises made to the International Olympic Committee by the London bid team in 2005 when it won the right to stage the Games.
"The Olympic Stadium was built on a promise, made in the Queen's name, to have a legacy for athletics," added Brady.
"Through [West Ham's] design there will be over £90m spent on reconfiguring the stadium so it sits perfectly for athletics and football and cricket and major events.
"Once the conversion is done, with the roof and some of the seats, there won't be a single seat within that stadium that has a worse view of the pitch than Wembley."
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