For the fencing manufacturer Zaun, four years after the London Games, the legacy keeps running and running. The fence firm has returned to the Olympic Stadium at Stratford, on several occasions, first decommissioning after the 2012 Paralympics, then reconfiguring and removing security fencing for last autumn’s Rugby World Cup and most recently to prepare it as the new home of West Ham United Football Club and a national competition centre for UK Athletics.
The transformation included installing the largest roof if its kind in the world, a community track, innovative retractable seating, spectator and hospitality facilities and external landscaping.
But the London legacy is about much more than just sporting venues. Zaun has also provided fencing around the ArcelorMittal Orbit, pictured, the work on the 275m-long Olympic media complex into iCITY and innovative ‘green’ acoustic fencing panels for the Chobham Academy on the former Athletes’ Village site.
On July 27, 2012, Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the 2012 Games after apparently surviving a skydive with James Bond actor Daniel Craig as part of Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle’s Isles of Wonder opening ceremony.
Wolverhampton’s Zaun and Coventry-based Harper Chalice cite their largest ever contracts as a springboard to the growth and success they now enjoy. They helped make the 30th Olympiad the biggest security operation post-war Britain had ever mounted at a cost of £553m and involving 10,000 police officers, 13,500 armed forces personnel – more than Britain had deployed in Afghanistan at that time – and 70,000 Games Maker volunteers.
London 2012 enjoyed packed stadia and smooth organisation; and the focus on sporting legacy and post-games venue sustainability was seen as a blueprint for future Olympics, including Rio 2016 that opens shortly.
‘Legacy’ and ongoing community benefit was a key factor on which London secured the Games, in 2005. The sporting facilities are part of the legacy, but perhaps less obvious are the ongoing contracts for British manufacturers and service providers, as enjoyed by Harper Chalice and Zaun, among others.
Harper Chalice general manager and director Chris Hackett says: “As part of the pre-award process we had to install our systems alongside our competitors for trial and testing by the Government Security Services. But the prize for winning was huge – 26 kilometres of PIDs and electric fencing at over 400 zones around the Olympic Park, that has formed the basis of the TriSecure complete perimeter protection system that we now provide today alongside Zaun to high-security utilities sites and others.”
Zaun head of sales Chris Plimley adds: “London’s legacy has touched education, commerce, industry, culture, media, tourism, sport and a whole lot more. We owe a large part of our commercial success to the Games and London showed how they could benefit an entire nation. So I’m amazed more cities aren’t getting on the bidding bandwagon once again.”
