North firms urged to compete for Olympic work

Nov 5 2009 by Peter McCusker, The Journal

SCORES of North East firms have secured millions of pounds worth of work on the 2012 Olympics and more regional businesses are being encouraged to bid for almost £2bn of remaining contracts.

Among those to have secured work include Newcastle-based environmental consultancy Entec, Corus on Teesside and County Durham-based steel-cladding specialist Sotech.

Hathaway Roofing, of Bishop Auckland, won the contract for the manufacture and installation of the roof and wall cladding system for the International Broadcast Centre at the Olympic Park.

Work started in August 2009 and it has around 40 people on site working on this contract. Hathaway managing director Kevin Hall said: “Hathaway’s were delighted to be awarded the external envelope contract for the IBC at the Olympic Park.

“This is a fantastic opportunity for us to be involved with the London 2012 Games and we look forward to a successful project completion.”

The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) yesterday released details of the businesses who have so far benefited from infrastructure contracts and these include 26 in the region.

But the ODA said there would be many more businesses benefiting through sub-contract work and through contracts placed by the London Organising Committee (LOCOG), which is running the games themselves.