As is widely known, the budget for the London 2012 Olympics is an utter shambles. It is currently standing at around £12BN (including running costs), and is likely to balloon to around £18BN by the time the games are held.
Despite the fact that the financial planning of these games has been an unmitigated disaster, the organisers still seem determined to heap further misery and ridicule upon themselves.
It is reported that the final cost for the main London 2012 Olympic Stadium could be higher than the revised £496M million estimate that was reported last month.
Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) chairman John Armitt told members of the London Assembly on October 10th that they had agreed the figure of £496M with main contractors Robert McAlpine for the 80,000 seater stadium.
The original budget for the stadium was in fact £280M, the £496M represents a staggering 77% increase.
However, it seems that the figure that Armitt gave the London Assembly was only a forecast. It seems that the forecast figure has an 80% chance of being correct. The people organising the games really seem to have no concept of plain speaking, and prefer instead to allow people to make assumptions.
Needless to say, this lack of rigour in their planning and communications inevitably comes back to bite them. I would have thought that they should have learnt their lesson by now, evidently not!
The actual cost of the stadium will only be known once the work is complete in 2011, a year before the London Games open.
I wonder how many more "surprises" the ODA have hidden up their sleeves for the long suffering tax payers?
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