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Licence-fee payers will pay £3 million to send BBC staff to cover the London Olympics from Manchester - a year after the corporation relocates.
About 1,500 employees will move to the BBC's new home at the MediaCity base in Salford before the Games.
This means that less than 12 months after the move, the BBC will land licence fee payers with a bill for the flights, train fares, taxis and accommodation for up to 500 employees making the 400-mile round trip to the capital for the Games.
One source said: "They should delay the move by a year or two rather than spend millions in extra cash. The BBC is already under fire for wasting money on expenses and now they are about to waste even more."
The BBC has promised its coverage of the Olympics will be the "most comprehensive broadcast the BBC has ever undertaken".
But while some staff will be based in London, including the BBC's £250,000-a-year Olympics chief, Roger Mosey, the majority will be brought in from Manchester at a cost of between £2 million and £3 million.
The estimate, based on the figure spent sending 437 staff to last year's Beijing Games, will include paying for workers in sport, children, Radio Five Live, learning and technology departments to stay in London for the two-week event.
Today shadow culture MP Philip Davies said: "It's the type of thing that could only happen at the BBC, because it has a 'money is no object' culture."
A BBC spokeswoman said it was considering having a London-based core team to cover the 2012 Games, which would then move up to Salford afterwards.
"As we are almost three years away from London 2012, plans for covering the Olympics are still being developed and any suggestion of the costs involved is pure speculation," she added.
Reader views (8)
Come on Ed,london, since when have BBC people ever travelled by train. It's limos and Taxis all the way.
- Steve, Brentford
No Worries, Don't have a TV licence. Never have and never will.
- Steve, Brentford
Tell you what, get the spectators (all 4 of them) to film this festival of running about, jumping and throwing things on mobile phones and send the Beeb the footage each day. They can then show about 60 seconds of highlights each day on the news, which is about as much as anyone needs to see, and the costs will be a lot less.
Another problem solved by the application of common sense.
- Nobby Clark, Perth, the Scottish one
Boris needs to be brave for once and scrap these Livingstone-vanity Games. We can leave the building site as it is in east london, it's not like dereliction and ugly high rises are out in the place in that side of town.
- Sarah, London
They won't be using any of my money to pay for this debacle. I have been paying for my licence by monthly direct debit but have cancelled this forthwith. I certainly won't miss watching t.v. as the quality of programmes is currently at gutter level.
- R.F., Yorks, UK
If train companies don't charge ridiculous fares, that 3m quid could easily be just a few hundred thousands
- Ed, London
Just what is the point of relocating to Manchester, or anywhere else north of the M25.
London is the capital; it is the centre of Government and finance. If anything new is likely to happen it will happen because of a London launch. London has 4 airports that serve its people and the major train and road networks terminate in London.
The Romans knew the importance of London and presumably the Olympics location committee had a good reason to choose London ahead of Manchester, Clearly the BBC, ignoring all of these points has decided that Salford, yes Salford is the centre of the England - well its not !
This relocation and a northern centric programme base is bound to turn off those below the waterline drawn from the Wash to the Bristol Channel, the biggest and more wealthy customer base.
Still us Southerners will all have one consolation - your wages will be low, you will have rubbish weather and longer darker nights for most of the time and compared to London your facilities will be hopeless, how we will laugh and perhaps request that you are turned into a commercial venture.
Its never a good idea to alienate Southerners !
- James, London UK
Perhaps just hire a couple oh hot air balloons. For filming purposes and wide enough to take the ego's of the primadonnas.
- William, Hay~Heath UK
