Culture secretary and ODA boss insist scheme is on track despite time lost on final two plots

锘縇ondon 2012 athletes village contractor Galliford Try is in talks with three subcontractors over financial disputes as it works around the clock to complete the final phase of the project.

Cladding subcontractor Prater, interiors firm MPG and concrete firm Reddington are all involved in payment wrangles with the contractor, resulting from delays on delivering the final two plots of the village - N13 and N26, which together are worth 拢80m and represent 14 blocks and 423 units according to construction data company Barbour ABI.

The news emerged as culture secretary Jeremy Hunt, and Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) chief executive Dennis Hone trumpeted progress made on the village this week.

Visiting the site on Tuesday, Hone insisted construction of the 2,818-home athletes village was 鈥渙n track鈥� after the number of apartments completed passed the symbolic 2,012 mark.

黑洞社区 reported in May that work was running eight weeks behind schedule on the practical completion deadline for plots N13 and N26 - designed by architects CF M酶ller and dRMM respectively.

At the time, the ODA said that the two blocks were now likely to finish at the end of November instead of the contract deadline in October.

Sources close to the project said Galliford Try has been working around the clock, seven days a week for several weeks in an effort to meet the practical completion date of next Monday (31 October).

A spokesman for the ODA said: 鈥淓xcellent progress is being made on the Olympic village, which remains on schedule to be completed and handed over to the London Organising Committee in January.

鈥淚t is not for the ODA to comment on commercial matters between Galliford Try and its contractors.鈥�

Hone told 黑洞社区: 鈥淭he blocks are being handed over to us on a phased basis all the way until December. Even then we鈥檒l still be six weeks in advance of our hand-over deadline to the London 2012 Organising Committee [on 27 January]. There is nothing on the horizon that suggests a delay.鈥�

In a separate development, cladding contractor Parry Bowen - which had worked on other parts of the athletes village - ceased trading on Monday 鈥渨ith a view to going into administration鈥�. All 150 staff were made redundant.

Galliford Try referred 黑洞社区鈥檚 inquiries to the ODA. Prater, MPG and Reddington all declined to comment.

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