The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) has chosen the CLM consortium to project manage the delivery programme for the venues and infrastructure of the 2012 Games.

David Higgins, Chief Executive of the ODA, said: “The winning team pairs the best of British industry with one of the world’s largest engineering firms. The three companies in the consortia have, among them, worked on five previous Olympic and Paralympic Summer and Winter Games and are working on two forthcoming ones, and played key roles on successful UK construction projects including the delivery of the huge construction programme for Terminal 5 at Heathrow.

“The Delivery Partner will be helping us to manage the costs of the building programme and we will be closely managing the Delivery Partner’s costs, with profit earned only if they hit performance targets we will set and agree with them.”

ODA chairman Jack Lemley is insistent there will be no repeat of the Wembley fiasco, “The British construction and engineering industry doesn’t deserve the rap they’re getting because of what’s happened at Wembley.

“The British construction and engineering industry is brilliant and there are a litany of brilliant projects including Arsenal’s new stadium and the Channel Tunnel high-speed rail link.

“It’s very unfair to cast dispersions on the industry because of Wembley. That is a unique project and if you’re going to use that as an example find out what the history is behind the project. The history will demonstrate a lot of the things that ODA have started out to avoid.

“We’re planning the processes, writing the briefs and hiring the contracts and designers that can perform to those briefs. If they can’t perform they’ll get fired. That’s how we’ll prevent another Wembley.” Ron Brooks, Chief Executive of CLM said: “Our team brings together the programme management and environmental track record of CH2M HILL, the construction expertise of Laing O’Rourk