UK NEWS

OLYMPICS ‘WILL BE WITHIN BUDGET’

PLEDGE: Boris Johnson

Wednesday October 8,2008

By Alison Little Deputy Political Editor

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THE cost to the taxpayer of the 2012 Olympic Games will be kept as low as possible, Mayor of London Boris Johnson pledged yesterday.

He told MPs he was confident that the Games would be delivered within the £9.3billion budget. But he admitted the credit crunch had meant problems in attracting private investment.

He added: “Market conditions have changed and we have to cut our clothes to suit our cloth.” Mr Johnson, who accepted the Olympic flag for London in the closing ceremony of August’s Beijing Games, promised an event “every bit as good as China’s.”

But it would be staged “without spending colossal sums and going overboard.”

The estimated cost of staging the 2012 Games was put at £4.1billion in 2005 when London won the bid. That spiralled to £9.3billion after it emerged that certain costs had not been taken into account.

An estimate of what the private sector would pay was drastically cut to £165million.

Campaigners have warned that the east London project is bound to bust its new budget but Mr Johnson insisted it would not. He said: “We will deliver a fantastic Olympics that will do London proud while not going over budget.”