26 July 2006 | Rebecca Ellinor

The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) this week began the procurement process to find a construction team for the Olympic stadium.

A brief for the stadium has been published confirming the ODA, the body responsible for delivering the infrastructure of the games, wants an 80,000-seat venue in the Lower Lea Valley which will be reduced to a 25,000-seater stadium after the event.

The stadium must be suitable to host track and field events and the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2012 Olympics, after which it will hold activities such as concerts, cultural, community and sporting events.

The ODA is looking for a team that will design and build the stadium and yesterday outlined its timetable which allows two years to plan, four years to build, and one year to test and commission the facilities. This means that some venues will be completed later than originally scheduled but David Higgins, ODA chief executive, said it made no sense to have venues completed so early that they sat vacant on a site and incurred maintenance costs.

The ODA has put aside an undisclosed sum to cover some of the costs of companies and consortia coming up with innovative ideas.

Higgins would not say how much the organisation plans to spend on the stadium at this stage. Sebastian Coe, chairman of the London Organising Committee, said to do so would curb the creative process.

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