London Olympics cost over £12bn, could rise to £24bn

Sky News reports:

The true cost of staging the 2012 Olympics is five times the figure given when London won the bid in 2005.

A Sky investigation has revealed the final cost for the Games will be more than £12bn.

However, associated costs could make the bill as high as £24bn - a staggering 10 times the original estimate...

Newham Council, the local authority staging the majority of the Games, provided some figures but requests for further details have been ignored despite contacting them six times.

A number of Freedom of Information requests to the council by members of the public have also failed to get the figures.

But Sky can reveal that they are providing £40m of public money towards the Olympic Stadium conversion and have also spent £700,000 on Olympic projects.

The council spent nearly £1m on their legal costs over the West Ham and Spurs FC row over the stadium and have spent £29,400 on tickets...

I would add that the fact that Britain bid for the Olympics in 2006 is no excuse. Wasting so much public money on a white elephant would not have been acceptable even if we never had a recession.

There was still poverty and cash-strapped services in 2006.