Real Estate: our work on the Games starts from the ground up


Our real estate lawyers played a key role in staking out solid foundations for London 2012.

The land the Olympic Park is built on brings together a raft of different rights. Some of it was bought under compulsory purchase arrangements, some was in private hands and some in public.

After the Games, ownership will pass to the designated legacy bodies to ensure Londoners benefit from the area for generations to come. Our lawyers have helped clarify and simplify the property aspects.

Fitting the jigsaw pieces together

One of our main roles was getting everyone working together efficiently. With our background in complex, multiparty property deals, this was second nature.

A lot of negotiations featured parties with potentially conflicting rights: utilities providers that needed access to the land or that had laid underground pipelines for gas or cables for electricity; authorities that controlled transport over the land – waterways, road, rail – as well as various government bodies.

We drew not just on legal experience but also on imagination, commercial nous and great diplomatic skills, to get things done.

Lots of leasing

We’ve handled the leasing arrangements for sites like:

  • 3 Mills Studio – the planning space for the ceremonies;
  • LOCOG’s offices at Canary Wharf. With a workforce that will expand dramatically and then scale down quickly, this means we’ve had to negotiate lots of flexibility for space; and
  • the primary data centre. This is a specialised lease mixed with a services agreement, to make sure the data ‘nerve centre’ of the Games is protected from problems.

Planning permission – the royal treatment

Some Games events will take place in Royal Parks, such as Greenwich, St James’s Park and Hyde Park, which include iconic locations like Marlborough House and the National Maritime Museum, and we helped obtain planning permission for these sensitive venues.

We’d love to tell you more. Contact John Fordham for more details of our real estate experience on the road to London 2012.

The Olympic Park is one of the most complex and visionary property projects ever undertaken in London. Thousands of interlocking rights of landowners, government bodies and other stakeholders underpinned delivery of the Games site.

We helped ensure all the pieces of the legal jigsaw fitted together.
Nick Leach
Back at base I’m a real estate lawyer, but here, in the LOCOG Legal team, I’ve had to do everything from negotiating boat hire to working on the contract for all the security arrangements. Every day is completely different. Nick Leech, Associate
John Fordham
I have learned about the importance of weed ploughing (keeping the rowing lake at Eton Dorney weed-free once the new lane system is installed), and of course, as someone whose professional life revolves around buildings, it has been fascinating to watch the Olympic Park with its iconic new structures ‘come out of the ground’. But just as important for me has been to witness the enjoyment and confidence that our secondees have gained from the whole LOCOG experience - a real once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for all of us. John Fordham, Partner