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Taxpayers may need to foot new Olympics bill
Matthew Beard, Sports News Correspondent09.12.08
TAXPAYERS may be asked again to bail out the £900 million Olympic Village within a few months, Games chiefs admitted today.
An extra £95 million pumped in to keep the building project on track will run out next spring and a further call on the Olympic contingency fund may be necessary, 2012 chiefs told MPs.
John Armitt, chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority, said: "So far most of the unexpected events have been the funding of the Village and in order to get on the site the Government has released £95 million to take us through to spring when hopefully we will get our finance in place.
"If we haven't then we will require further contingency but overall I'm confident we will keep within the budget set."
Olympics minister Tessa Jowell admitted that no private money may be found for the Olympic village.
She said: "Of course, it's possible (that we won't raise any) private sector money, but that doesn't mean we will give up on the possibility of private sector investment or investment from another source other than government."
Talks to plug a gap in private sector funding for the village have involved three housing associations.
Meanwhile, Australian developer Lend Lease has until March to raise funds for the project.
Mr Armitt said the ODA stands to benefit from the worldwide economic downturn as he expects inflation to fall.Savings may be made on the price of steel, which has risen by 3,000 per cent in recent years.
Mr Armitt said: "(Construction) inflation has stayed fairly high in the last 12 months at seven per cent although there's been a slowdown in the last quarter. That will potentially benefit us."
He also raised the prospect of some of the thousands of firms supplying the Olympic project going out of business.He said: "There will be companies getting into financial difficulties and maybe going bust."
Reader views (11)
Who's doing the asking here? No ones asked me, and if I say no? Any olympic venue, whilst productive for select atheletes who represent the UK, will have no impact other than that of immediate localised economic subsistance. I admire the atheletes & its support program, but the `commitee` & MP's & `budget` I certainly do not. There is a reason why there is such a thing called Turn Key Soultions
- Jake, Aberdeen
>>Even with the bailout from the contingency the total budget is still under the £9.3billion they said it would b
Darren. Ken Livingstone originally promised it would cost £2.3bn so we are massively over budget. If it comes in at under £15bn I will be surprised.
As for any lasting benefit, the only people who believe that are the muppets ruining the country.
- Adam, Harrow, UK
Come on " Don't play the game" with our hard pressed tax payers.
- Bernard Parke, GUILDFORD
NO NO NO
- Jeremy E, London
Why oh why do we continually allow the support of big business fat cats to be at the expense of the public Taxpayers ?
- E. Nuff, london
Even with the bailout from the contingency the total budget is still under the £9.3billion they said it would be. And only something like £3 billion of that is taxpayers money. Times are tough, but this project is huge and will benefit all of London with redeveloped land for new homes and jobs, as well as improved transport on the DLR, Jubilee and Overground lines. None of this would be happening so quickly nor to a decent level that has to be achieved with the Games. Even if the Games were cancelled, the amount given back to the taxpayer would be minimal, and would be cancelled out anyway from having to lay-off thousands of builders and leaving a half built stadium and park in the east of the city.
- Darren, London
Dump the Olympics, it's a total waste of money.
- Vince London, West London
Put a few tents up for them and leave us taxpayers alone with you stupid ideas, what a lasting legacy that would be!!!
- Dc, London
Better look at the salaries of Coe & Co first.
- Emily, London
More money? You must be joking. As a tax payer, will I be consulted? Of course not. John Armitt and Tessa Jowell can go to hell, enough is enough. I am a big sports fan but this project is taking the pee.
- Marina, East Anglia
Can somebody tell me why we ever bid for the games at all. From day one we could never afford it and its getting more apparant by the hour. Why should londoners have to pay for what a handful idiots subjected us to. If the don't have the money then cancel them and let some other third world idiots have them
- Ivan Cohen, Miami Florida
