UK News

Olympic debt and land deal gives momentum to legacy

Avril Ormsby

Jul 8, 2010 16:20 UTC

The government has signed off a multi-million pound debt and land deal with the Mayor of London, which could have endangered parts of the 2012 Olympic legacy and threatened to turn it into an unseemly Conservative spat.

Margaret Ford, chairman of the Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC) responsible for managing the Olympic Park post-Games, had used every possible opportunity to flag up the debt issue ever since the Conservative-led coalition government said it was to review the previous Labour government’s deal.

The Treasury had agreed in March to pay 438 million pounds after much to-ing and fro-ing between central government and Boris Johnson’s office.

But the coalition, which has made reining in  a record peacetime budget deficit its top priority, said it would look at the deal. It has also told Olympic organisers responsible for the Olympic build to find 27 million pounds of savings.

from The Great Debate UK:

Government must deliver on Olympic legacy promise

- Hugh Robertson is the opposition Conservatives' Olympics spokesman. The views expressed are his own. -

With three years to go, it is remarkable that London 2012 is going so well.

London’s Olympics were launched with a massive government miscalculation that resulted in the budget having to be increased threefold, were based on a plan that required us to build two Terminal 5s in half the time and have had to contend with the worst economic recession in living memory.