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News Desk
Londoner's are today learning that the Olympic Games will cost more money than planned, with an extra £2.7 billion added to the original estimate of £9.3 billion The news follow an investigation which has blown to pieces the line put out by the Olympic Delivery Authority that the Games would be completed within the £9.3 billion budget. Sky News who investigated the costs of the Olympic Games in London found that the "true cost of the London 2012 Games for the UK taxpayer comes in at over £12 billion, £2.7 bn more than the 9.3bn budget".
The Sky investigation found that the Olympic and Paralympic Games is approximately six times the £2.37 billion pounds that was originally quoted when London bid for the Games in 2005.
The extra costs have been added to the original £9.3 bn to pay for according to the Sky News investigation, more anti-doping control officers, money for local councils for their Olympic torch relay programmes, cash spent on legacy schemes, paying tube workers not to strike, governmental operational costs, the cost of the Olympic Park Legacy Company, legal bills over the stadium tenancy decision and extra cash to UK Sport.
The budget for operational security has risen to £757million from the £600million budget in 2007. Adding to this figure is £286m for security costs during venue construction; the overall bill has now reached a £1 billion and could set to rise. With police costs likely to push the overall security costs to over £2 billion.
Commenting on the rising costs of the Olympic Games Will Glendinning of Allium Opus said:
"The cost of LOCOG delivering the actual games will not have changed greatly. What we are seeing here is one way of interpreting a range of additional costs that are associated with the Olympics and Paralympics, from legacy work all the way through to local youth events.
“It is incredibly difficult to deduce which costs are attributable to the games themselves and which are the result of these wider initiatives, so realistically we will have to wait until after the summer before we can assess the project's financial management.
“Although there are significant costs involved, much of this additional expenditure is going towards investments in infrastructure and community work, which are creating jobs and will have a lasting impact on the capital and the UK.”
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