Tottenham 'prefer' Olympic stadium

The architect behind Tottenham Hotspur's redevelopment of White Hart Lane and the surrounding area, and their bid to take over the Olympic Park site after 2012, yesterday said that a move to east London would be the "preferred option".

"At the moment we only have one guaranteed option," said David Keirle, chairman of architects KSS, who are designing Tottenham's redevelopment, as well as preparing the club's Olympic Park proposal. "But White Hart Lane can't provide some things we'd like it to, so we started looking at lots of sites.

"We had extended dialogue with the London Development Agency at an earlier stage about the Stratford Olympic Park site and made it clear that would be a preferred option if we could come to some arrangement about how we could move there."

Spurs are currently in the process of redeveloping White Hart Lane and the surrounding Northumberland Park area but have also submitted a proposal to the Olympic Park Legacy Committee (OPLC) to take over the Olympic stadium and re-house Spurs there after the competition.

On 28 January the committee will choose one bid to put forward as their preferred option. The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, and the Minister for Sport and the Olympics, Hugh Robertson, will make a final decision at the end of March.

If Spurs are successful, they will remove the shell of the 80,000-capacity stadium after the Games and construct a 60,000-seat stadium, costing £100m to £150m. The plan is backed by O2 Arena operator AEG.

In order to comply with the OPLC's requirement that athletics are a core legacy of the Games, the club have proposed to redevelop Crystal Palace to accommodate up to 40,000 spectators. A portion of profits made at Tottenham's new stadium will also be paid to the legacy company.

While continuing to pursue the Olympic option, the north London club will also push ahead with their planned redevelopment of White Hart Lane until the March decision, but a move east would surely anger fans.

"White Hart Lane is the home of Spurs, I fully appreciate that," added Keirle, "but for a large percentage of fans it would be much easier to get to Stratford."

Tottenham MP David Lammy last night criticised the club's plans for the Olympic site. "I fully support the money spent on the Olympic Stadium, but for it to be only used for a month before being demolished is a diabolical waste of public money," he said.