Olympians greeted by reports of 32-mile queues
With today’s opening of the M4’s “Games lane” to accommodate an influx of Olympic athletes, motorists faced morning rush hour queues reportedly up to 32 miles long.
For many visitors, their first glimpse of London were queues and traffic chaos. Heathrow Airport was expected to process 10,000 more passengers than normal as competitors flew in from around the world today, most of them headed from the airport across town to the Olympic village.
But it was an accident rather than a crack in the road that frustrated motorists making the slow crawl into London this morning. The accident, combined with the introduction of a dedicated “Olympic Family” lane between 5am and 10pm, left motorists on the M4 fuming. At one point, the line-up began at the A34 as traffic from three lanes merged into two lanes and a traffic accident near Junction 11 shut Reading.
“It was a knock-on effect,” AA spokesman Paul Watters told Channel 4 News. “The rush hour added to the complexity.”
The Telegraph reported a line-up stretching 32 miles into London, but a Highways Agency spokesman denied any problems saying it was a typical Monday morning. Video footage showed motorist inching their way into London, at times coming to a complete stop.
The delays approaching Heathrow subsided after the rush hour peak but given that Monday is generally quieter than other days, the AA will be monitoring the situation closely. Work has only recently been completed on the damaged flyover near junction 2 of the motorway in west London. Mr Watters suggested regular drivers may want to consider being more flexible with their driving times to avoid jams.
With less than two weeks until the opening ceremony, ministers insisted plans are going according to schedule. They reassured Londoners that the games would be secure and dismissed G4S’s failure to provide the promised 10,000 security guards as no more than a “hitch”.
Meanwhile, it emerged that G4S were warned 10 months ago, in a confidential report by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC), that there were concerns over security.
Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has defended G4S, going so far as to suggest it was “completely normal” for firms to break their contractual commitments on large projects.
G4S Chief Executive Nick Buckles, due before the Commons Home Affairs Committee on Tuesday, admitted he may be forced to quit his £830,000-a-year job in the wake of the Olympic debacle.
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The Home Office confirmed that ministers had received a report from HMIC last September raising a number of “issues to be addressed” with the organising committee Locog, although it said these had already been dealt with.
“We asked HMIC to carry out a number of inspections to test that Locog security planning was on track,” a spokesman said.
“While an early inspection highlighted issues to be addressed, a report in February 2012 said that Locog was on track to deliver the required number of security personnel.”
It was following the HMIC report that a review of security requirements led Locog to increase the number of security guards to be supplied by G4S from 2,000 to 10,400 while the value of the contract more than trebled from £86 million to £284 million.
London Mayor Boris Johnson did his best to welcome the international media to the Olympic press centre today, promising free trips around the city. He noted London has twice as many book shops as New York – with a quarter of the murder rate – less rain than in Rome and more Michelin-starred restaurants than in Paris.
Mr Johnson added that if he were wrong about his Michelin star facts, he’d be happy to check the data personally on a trip to Paris.
