Allister Hayman,
Regeneration & Renewal,
10 October 2008
The chief of the nascent housing and regeneration super-quango will sit on the board overseeing plans for London's Olympic legacy, London mayor Boris Johnson announced last week.
Sir Bob Kerslake, chief executive of the new Homes and Communities Agency (HCA), will join nine members on the Legacy Board of Advisors, which will advise Johnson on all aspects of the Olympic legacy plans for London.
Kerslake's appointment signals the increasing involvement of HCA in the Olympic Games development. Last week, a senior source in east London told Regeneration & Renewal that HCA would be "heavily involved" in a forthcoming special purpose vehicle to bring forward the Olympic legacy.
The legacy board also includes newly appointed London Development Agency chair Harvey McGrath, private equity tycoon David Gregson, executive trustee of the Grosvenor estate Jeremy Newsum, Serpentine art gallery director Julia Peyton-Jones, Hackney mayor Jules Pipe, businessman Richard Sharp, former Olympic athlete Tessa Sanderson and Neale Coleman, the London mayor's adviser on the Games.
The board's chair will be David Ross, deputy chairman of mobile phone retailer the Carphone Warehouse. In May, Johnson appointed Ross to represent him on the London Organising Committee of the 2012 Games. One month later, Ross published a report warning that falling house prices and a lack of liquidity in the banking system had cast doubt over the project's funding proposals and that private sector support was proving hard to find.
