By Tom Degun at the Olympic Stadium in London

Sir_Robin_Wales_outside_Olympic_StadiumSeptember 30 - Sir Robin Wales, the Mayor of Newham, has claimed that the continuing row over the future of the Olympic Stadium is delaying the important planning work that Newham Council need to do on the venue for when West Ham United take it over after London 2012.


The joint bid for the Olympic stadium from Newham Council and West Ham was recommended by the Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC) but the decision has been challenged by Tottenham Hotspur and Leyton Orient.

The London Mayor Boris Johnson wants the Premier League club to drop their legal action over the award of the Olympic Stadium to Newham and West Ham and is helping to fund a £17 million ($27 million/€19.5 million) package in infrastructure improvements to the club to develop a new ground next to White Hart Lane.

The move comes as the Mayor's office and Sport and Olympics Minister Hugh Robertson put increasing pressure on Tottenham to reach an agreement and abandon a judicial review due to be heard in the High Court next month.

The legal challenge is the main obstacle to London's bid to host the 2017 World Athletics Championships with an Evaluation Commission from the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) set to arrive here on Sunday (October 2) to inspect the bid as London goes up against Doha for the right to stage the event.

The Mayor of Newham said claimed that the continued dispute is becoming draining as it is delaying the time in which the venue can be used after the London 2012 Games.

"I never comment on what anybody else is doing but can say categorically that we have a brilliant bid for the Olympic Stadium," Sir Robin told insidethegames here at the Olympic Stadium.

"We have bid that we are proud of and a bid that I think the country can be proud of.

"As far as I am concerned, it is very frustrating that we can't get on with doing the planning and the work that we need to do.

"There is a huge amount of work needs to be done to convert the Stadium after 2012 and we want it to be done as quickly as possible so that we can use this wonderful facility for our local people, the people of London and for people across the UK.

"But I think people out there know what is going on and they know that when it comes to us, we have stood by our promises.

"It is very frustrating that this not moving forward as fast as we would like but we will keep at it and we won't let people down."

Newham Council and West Ham were the only bidders to commit to keeping the Olympic athletics track in place while Tottenham wanted to remove it to create a football only venue.

Sir Robin though, believes that a multi-sport venue will create the best possible legacy form the London 2012 Olympics and act as a major community as well as an international asset. including for cricket, with Essex planning to use it as a venue for one day matches.

"We are going to have an athletics legacy, a football legacy and also a cricket legacy which is sometimes forgotten in the media," he said.

"This will be the fourth biggest cricket stadium in the world which is fantastic for our communities.

"We can also have lots of other sports and have young children competing here on the same track that the Olympic athletes have run on.

"That is the sort of thing we want to do because this is going to be a community asset as well as an international asset."

London 2012 chairman Sebastian Coe, who is leading London's challenge against Doha for the 2017 World Athletics Championships, added that he feels that the row will have no impact on the bid.

"The Mayor, the Government, UK Athletics and the OPLC are all committed to keeping the track and staging a World Athletics Championships," he said.

"That is a very serious commitment.

"So anything else said is just noises off."

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