Olympic legacy budget faces £450million hole

A committee from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport met this morning to quiz Baroness Ford and Andrew Altman, respectively chairman and chief executive of the Olympic Park Legacy Company, about its plans to oversee the legacy aspect of the Games.

During the session it was revealed that work to be carried out by the Olympic Delivery Authority to ready the venues for legacy use has funding in place, but more cash will be needed once their role has finished.

Baroness Ford was frank in her assessment of how much it will cost to make the Park fully functional for Londoners after 2012.

She said: "The transformation budget available to the Olympic Delivery Authority was estimated at £350million, but that was not a legacy budget. It was to deal with planning obligations and is already spoken for.

"To get the Park up and running we will need another £450million of capital.

"We're going through what work needs to be done on a line-by-line basis to check exactly what we need and then we will be able to work through our capital requirements.

"But the money for legacy was never going to come from the Olympic budget. We anticipate the money will come from one of our shareholders, either central Government or the Mayor."

The Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC) was set up last year to oversee the long-term development of the area, including the post-Games use of the venues.

It is working on a revised business plan for the Park, to include more sport legacy, which will be published later this year.

The lure of the Olympics should help the OPLC recoup much of the money that has been spent, including around £500million of Lottery money used on the Park.

It will find tenants for venues such as the media and broadcast centres, as well as oversee the development of housing on the Park. Baroness Ford was confident there will be plenty of opportunity to maximise the investment.

Baroness Ford said: "We will get world class assets and we should be able to generate income from them. We will fully pay back the Lottery money."

The committee was also keen to know what progress had been made on finding a tenant for the Olympic Stadium, particularly with West Ham's declaration that it wants to move in there.

Baroness Ford said: "Lots of people have expressed an interest and there has been a lot of discussion. But there is a process in place.

"West Ham's new owners have been very vocal about the stadium but we are not having discussions with them. We have not had formal discussions with anyone.

"Plenty of other people are interested in the stadium but I cannot say who we have been talking to."

Whoever moves in as a tenant, whether it's a rugby team or West Ham, looks likely to have to accept the promised athletics legacy, at least for the short-to-medium term.

The athletics legacy is something that has divided opinion but Baroness Ford reaffirmed the commitment.

She said: "There is a big commitment to have grand prix athletics in the stadium.

"We support the view of Sebastian Coe to have an athletics legacy, although it will not be the primary legacy as it will not be held in the stadium a huge number of times every year.

"But athletics will be part of the use because that is what was promised. There is a bid for the 2015 World Athletics Championships and the stadium will form part of that."

"If other things can run complementary to athletics it will be good and we will decide on it this year."

One issue still facing the OPLC is the Park land has not yet been transferred to it from the London Development Agency.

A London Assembly meeting is being held at City Hall tomorrow to examine why there has been a delay.