By the time this issue hits your desk we’ll have all been to BSEC and hopefully some decisions will have been announced that may mean stalled BSF projects will have had successful funding reviews. What can contractors do? Wait for a decision or move the team to another project, then possibly being unavailable should a new start be announced? Whichever party gets in, the government is still in charge – and none of them seem to value our industry. And, initially a casualty of the tightening economy, it now looks as though CABE will remain with us, now to merge with the Design Council. Jobs will go though, with only 20 of CABE’s 125 staff, and approximately only 40% of the Design Council’s staff, transferring to the new organisation.

So with 18 months to go before even the opening ceremony is staged, the Olympic Stadium’s future is being decided by two football clubs, the retention of the athletics track being a major issue. Manchester City Football Club had a very successful take-over of the Commonwealth Games’ stadium, although this was (I believe) designed from the outset to become a football stadium afterwards. Or is it a case of too many committees trying to tick too many boxes? It’s as though we don’t want to discuss the subject of money – but a project of this size surely has to have commercial value as well as being a showpiece.

In Design & Desire this month we visit the new Salvador Dali Museum in Florida. This museum is gorgeous – I really can’t see any exhibition inside it outshining the building itself. It was the same when I went to the Guggenheim in Bilbao, I really couldn’t tell you anything about the art I saw inside, but I came back with a whole roll of film of external shots!