Visitors to Trafalgar Square will be able to count down the hours to the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games after a giant clock is installed. Watch manufacturers Omega will be sponsoring the clock.
The clock will measure a 6.5 metres tall, 4 metres wide and 1 metre thick, with a countdown for the Olympics on one side and the Paralympics on the other. There will be two bands of LED digital display showing both days and hours, with 2012 logos.
On March 15th Olympic officials will start the clock, to mark 500 days before the start of the games in 2012. The clock will be located near the bottom on the steps leading up to the North Terrace of Trafalgar Square. This location is part of the open space designed in 1840 by Sir Charles Barry to be a formal setting for Nelson's Column.
Cllr Robert Davis, Westminster City Council’s deputy leader and chairman of the planning committee, said: “We are enthusiastic supporters of the Olympics and are proud of the key role Westminster will be playing. I can think of no more fitting or iconic place for a countdown clock to stand than Trafalgar Square, a place associated so strongly with this country's victories, and the main location for celebrations when it was announced that London would be the host city for the 2012 Games. I hope that the public and Britain's athletes will be inspired by its closeness to the world famous monument to the heroic admiral Nelson who truly gave his all for his country.”
