Olympic Shambles

Let us start by saying what a great opportunity, on so many levels, the hosting of the Olympics will be.

Great for our athletes, regeneration of a pretty awful part of London as well the employment opportunities for our industry.

The costing of the project has so far been a bit of a mess. Since the inception of the project not a lot has occurred to the economy that could not have been anticipated.

If construction costs have risen then this should have been projected. The rise in the price of steel is not a recent phenomenon, and yet it is has only now been considered.

The revised costs as reported by Tessa Jowell yesterday will take into account inflation in 2012. How can this have been overlooked?

One of the true additional costs is the housing being planned for the site after the games.

All of these costs will be borne by the Lottery Fund and London Taxpayers. Exactly what benefit 8m Londoners will actually accrue from their contribution is for a discussion another day.

As far as we are aware the running of an Olympics is a profitable event. The TV rights, advertising revenue, the property sales at the end of the games etc. But where does all this profit go? Does it go back to the taxpayers who so kindly funded the project?

Over the coming years we are going to see massive overspend, mis-management as well as stories of people getting very wealthy….