22/03/2013

Other News In Brief

West Ham To Take On Olympic Stadium

West Ham will be anchor tenants for the Olympic Stadium after the government agreed to put in an extra £25m towards the costs of converting the venue, taking the Treasury's contribution to around £60m.

The deal was secured only after West Ham agreed to increase their own funding of the project by £5m, to £15m. They will move in from August 2016 and pay around £2m a year rent.

Under conversion plans, the roof will be extended and the seating capacity reduced from 80,000 to 60,000, with a retractable system allowing the venue to be converted from an athletics arena to football stadium within days.

Adapting the stadium could cost between £150m and £190m.

TfL Bus Ad Ban Ruled Lawful

A ban on a Christian group's ‘gay cure’ bus advert has been ruled as lawful.

While the High Court ruled Transport for London's process in introducing the ban "was procedurally unfair", it also ruled that TfL was right to ban the Core Issues Trust's advert because it would "cause grave offence" to those who were gay.

43-Year-Old Didcot Power Station Powers Down

Oxfordshire's Didcot A Power Station is to be turned off later after 43 years of service.

RWE npower announced the closure of the 2,000 megawatt (MW) coal-fired station in September, after opting out of the EU's Large Combustion Plant Directive.

Phil Noake, Didcot A's station manager, called it a "very sad time for everyone at the power station".

Nine months of decommissioning begins on 31 March, with demolition of the six towers expected to take several years.

The station will cease generating at 14:00 on Friday.

(H)


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02 September 2015
Eggborough Power Station May Cease Operations
Eggborough Power Station may have to cease generating power by March 2016, subject to consultations with staff and government bodies. The coal-fired power station requires additional funding of £200m over the next three years to continue generating power, which the company says is "financially unsustainable" for the 53-year-old plant.
01 August 2006
Wembley Stadium 'unlikely to open until June 2007'
The opening of the new Wembley Stadium looks set to be delayed until June 2007. The venue had been due to be completed by August 2005, but construction has been hit by a series of delays, which resulted in this year's FA Cup Final being moved to the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.
03 July 2006
More delays for Wembley Stadium
The completion of the new Wembley Stadium looks likely to be delayed even further, the construction firm working on the project has announced. Australian firm Multiplex said that it did not expect that construction work on the £757 million stadium would be finished until after September.
02 May 2013
Olympic Stadium To Host RWC Games
London's Olympic Stadium will host five games at the 2015 Rugby World Cup. Twickenham will host the opening match of the event on 18 September, with England facing the winner of the Oceania qualifying competition.
08 March 2011
The Met Crackdown On Ticket Touts
A weekend crackdown on ticket touts has netted eight arrests as the Met's Operation Podium team targeted two football matches. Four men, aged 23-47, were arrested close to the Emirates stadium in the run up to the match on Saturday. They have since been bailed until dates in April.