Mayor of London Boris Johnson has called on businesses and organisations from around the world to submit truly ground-breaking ideas to contribute to making the Olympic Park a spectacular success once London's Games are over.

In Beijing, as he prepared to receive the Olympic flag that will mark the handover to London as Olympic host city the Mayor launched 'London Calling' as Chairman of the Olympic Park Regeneration Steering Group. This is a prospectus setting out the ambitions for the Olympic Park after the Games and challenging global investors to submit exceptional ideas for its development.

The Mayor said: "In 2012 we will stage a spectacular sporting event but I am also determined that London should realise the potential that the 2012 Games offer to make our city greater still through the legacy that we can leave for generations to come.


"A huge amount of our investment in the Olympic Park is for legacy. We are cleaning up the land, burying overhead powerlines, upgrading roads and railways and installing new energy infrastructure. A site of this scale and quality, within a few minutes of a great city centre, must be almost unprecedented. We are delivering for 2012, but planning for the long-term.

"Since my election as Mayor I have insisted on new focus and more impetus in planning and delivering this long term legacy. And today I am calling on investors and organisations around the world to come forward and surprise us with startling ideas that can preserve the memory of the Games while creating a new focus for London's eastward growth.

"We are looking for ideas of how London's Olympic Park can become not just a great place to live, work and visit, but a place that retains a flavour of the extra-ordinary, a place with the 'wow' factor, a place of magic. We are looking for the mix of imagination and realism that marks out the truly great ideas and will create a truly great place."

(CD/JM)