The good news is that the London Olympic Games are expected to come in under budget by some £500 million pounds. The problem is that the budget, which back in December 2002 was estimated by an engineering consultancy to come in an some £1.8 billion is now estimated to be something between £8.8 and 8.9 billion pounds. Ouch!
The London Olympic Games, described as Tony Blair's legacy to Britain, was once the bid was won in July 2005, then being estimated to cost a mere £2.4 billion pounds. By November 2006, Tessa Jowell (the Secretary of State for Sport) quietly admitted that costs had risen to £3.3 billion. In March 2007, Tessa Jowell announced a revised budget of £9.3 billion bounds.
Some other numbers to think about - the Sydney Olympics made a profit of £3.3 billion pounds. The Athens Olympic games cost £9 billion pounds. The Beijing Games cost some £22 billion pounds. Jack Lemley (the former Olympic Delivery Authority Chairman) suggested as early as April 2008 that the London Olympics could cost £20 billion pounds.
It looks like, before the paint dried and the first race is run that the London focused games are going to cost and we are all going to pay for it for some time to come (and then some) - thanks Tony!
No comments:
Post a Comment