London has to take ownership of Olympic bid - Cassani

3:30pm Wednesday 19th November 2003

It’s the logo launch of the London 2012 Olympic bid, and Barbara Cassani – bid chairman – is trying to help me. I want to know how people can get hold of the logo and use it.

“Can you give me words on this?” she says to her PR man. “No?”

She turns to me: “I think we should give you something quite specific. I mean, saying something kind of woolly doesn’t really help.”

“In fact, I was in a taxi a couple of weeks ago, and the driver looked up in the mirror and he said (affects hugely excited tone of voice), ‘I know who you are - you're that Olympic lady!’ And he said, ‘Why don't I have something to put in my cab?’ And I said, ‘Well, exactly! Hold that thought!’”

Whether or not the taxi driver held that thought, Barbara Cassani has. She twists round in her seat to find someone who can tell me where people can get the logo to put it in their windows and hang in their shops.

"It needs to become everyone's Olympic Games,” she continues, scanning the room, “because if it's mine with 50 people working on it, we will not win.

“But if it becomes schoolchildren's and athletes' and shop keepers' and cab drivers' and restaurant owners, it will win.”

Barbara Cassani has two months to make the London 2012 bid “everyone’s”. In January next year, her team must hand over its masterplan for the games to the International Olympic Committee and wait four nail-biting months to find out if they’ve made the cut for the second round.

It’s no wonder she’s keen to get everyone spreading the message – me, the taxi driver, the restaurateur.

So why, if the bid needs all of London behind it, are the main venues destined to be built in the east – the Lower Lea Valley – far from the central locations other bid cities have announced?

“The London bid and where we're going to locate all the different sports has not been fully announced yet, so that's the first point. You haven't seen the whole picture; you've seen part of the picture.

“We are very mindful of what the International Olympic Committee wants the Olympics to achieve.

“They want to make sure that as the games are developed the areas are then usable to promote whatever's important to the city that they're located in, and in fact what's been on both the national and the city agenda for many years has been how to find a way of cleaning up that central bit of the Lower Lea Valley and finding a way of connecting the communities across the Lea river.”

“So what we have done is taken the spirit of what the Olympic movements asked us to do and brought it to life by saying, ‘What's an important thing for London?’ and then we've added to it the Olympics. And then we've said if we can overlay on top of the masterplan for that area the Olympics, how can we bring it to life?

“We feel that we've made our bid very strong - much stronger than any of our competitors - because we're achieving local and national objectives while offering a tremendous Olympic proposal.”

Barbara Cassani does not seem relaxed. With a deadline like hers it would perhaps be worrying if she did. Instead, she gives the impression of being organised and energetic.

So energetic, in fact, I’m having trouble getting another question in.

“What we'll be doing over the next couple of - well really, I guess two - months as we prepare for January 15 submission, we'll be announcing the other locations for the sports, so we are looking at iconic buildings and locations in London and asking ourselves, could you stage sports here?

“Does it allow us to provide a top-class competition venue; is it a place that spectators would like to visit? Does it have good transport connections so that everyone can use public transport getting to it? Does it have good security?”

Locations as diverse as Trafalgar Square and Lord’s are being considered alongside the new Wembley Stadium and the proposed venues in the Lower Lea, but even these are not enough to make sure everyone is involved:

“The other thing that it's important to remember is that it's not just about sporting venues, it's also about all the cultural programme. So whether it's big screens, or it's concerts, we'll be looking to incorporate everybody in London.”

She pauses. I get a question in: Tell me more about the consultations in the Lower Lea Valley.

“We've had seven consultations thus far and there are more planned through the end of November into December and they've been doing precisely what we want them to do, which is to consult.

“The thing that has given us great heart is that even when people have constructive criticism, they always start their comments with, 'I think it would be terrific to bring the games here, but we have a local concern or issue', and that's what consultation is about.”

I ask for more detail on the seven that have been held. Though she doesn’t know herself, somebody else does.

"We need Jackie - he wants to talk about the consultation programme.“ Barbara Cassani is craning her neck round again. She’s determined to get me all the information I want, because – and this is the aim of the logo launch anyway – she’s determined to get me on side, just as she’s determined to get you on side too.

And she’s determined because she’s right: if we’re not involved, the London Olympic bid is not going to win.