Aerial views show London's Olympic Park taking shape » Communities » 24dash.com

This is the changing skyline over London's Olympic Park.

New before-and-after aerial images of the main venues taken a year apart show the scale of the work that has taken place at the east London site in Stratford.

The shape of the Olympic Stadium bowl and steel seating frame plus the footprint of the Velodrome can be spotted.

The credit crunch is casting uncertainty over the private sector backing of the media centre but a site for this facility has been cleared.

The southern roof support for the Aquatic Centre is taking shape.

Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) chief executive David Higgins said: "The construction site has been a hive of activity over the last year with thousands of workers starting work on the venues and infrastructure needed for the Games and the new communities in legacy.

"These images clearly show the solid progress that has already been made on the ground. With old buildings and overhead pylons coming down, and new venues and infrastructure going up, the skyline of east London is starting to change.

"Seventy-five pence of every pound we are spending is a long-term investment in the area. The work we are doing will leave a lasting legacy of world class sports venues, new roads, bridges and energy networks, thousands of new homes and a brand new urban park."

Meanwhile, Lord Coe today pledged that the London 2012 Olympics will be a "secure" Games as the devastating terror strikes in Mumbai put security at the top of the political agenda.

The London 2012 chairman stressed that security "underpinned" the planning of the Games and London's great advantage was in having a police force with a long-established history of dealing with terror attacks.

"Our security plans are under way and we will deliver a secure Games," he told a press conference in London for the International Olympic Committee's debriefing of the Beijing 2008 Games.

Lord Coe would not be drawn into releasing information about the 2012 security plan.

He said: "Those are budgets and scopes that are still being detailed.

"You will not be surprised that we will not go into detail about that, but like every city we will take that (security) very seriously."

He was speaking at the end of the week-long debrief on lessons to be learned from this summer's Beijing Olympics.

It was attended by IOC members along with officials from Vancouver 2010 and Fochi 2014.

England's final two one-day cricket internationals in India have been cancelled following the Mumbai attacks.

At present plans for the two Test matches in Ahmedabad and Mumbai next month remain unaffected.

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) requested the one-day matches in Guwahati and Delhi be called off and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) gave its consent.

The ECB has stressed, however, that it has made no such request regarding the Test series.

Hugh Morris, the ECB's managing director of England cricket, said: "We asked BCCI to consider cancelling the sixth and seventh one-day international - we are grateful for their co-operation to that effect."