Key Olympic players invited to secret 2012 summit

The Olympic Delivery Authority has held its first design review meeting, attended by top players from across the construction industry.

Key figures on the client and design sides, including Sir Stuart Lipton and Lord Richard Rogers, gathered at the request of the ODA chief executive, David Higgins, for a two-day meeting last week.

The gathering, held behind closed doors, is the first time so many senior industry people have met to discuss design plans for the £3.4bn Olympic construction programme.

Thirty-five people attended the get-together, which was chaired by Higgins, including representatives from CABE and Stratford City site owners London & Continental, as well as London mayoral adviser Ricky Burdett.

Olympic Park design team members Graham Morrison, director of Allies & Morrison, Jason Prior, regional vice president of EDAW and a representative from Foreign Office Architects were also present. But Rod Sheard, senior principal at HOK Sport, also part of the team, declined the invitation to attend, saying it could compromise HOK's chances of winning Olympic work.

One senior industry figure who attended the meeting said Higgins led talks on design standards and costs but avoided any questions about procurement.

The source said: "The question of how small we break up the packages of Olympic work, so that smaller design firms might get involved, was not answered. Perhaps he'll address it next time."

Building understands this was an induction meeting and the next review panel, to be held later in the summer, will involve fewer people.

A spokesperson for the ODA said Higgins had not yet finalised who would be on the final design review panel.

She said: "This was an initial meeting. It is rather an unwieldy group to take forward so the next design review panel meeting will be a smaller group.

"We will be announcing in June the number of people and who will be on it. It will almost definitely be a broad make-up to get a cross-industry view."