London Stadium costing Londoners more than £8 million a year

A new report from the London Assembly Budget and Performance Committee has warned that the London Stadium, the home of West Ham United, is costing Londoners more than £8 million per year to run. If West Ham are relegated to the Championship, this cost could increase by £1.5 million.

The London Assembly Budget and Performance Committee has today published its findings of its investigation into the finances of London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC), the body set up for managing the physical legacy of the 2012 Olympic Games.

The report also uncovered that:

• COVID-19 has added substantially to construction and development costs for LLDC’s flagship regeneration scheme—the East Bank. While the true cost of COVID-19 to the scheme are still being modelled, confirmed costs to the taxpayer have already mushroomed by £151 million since the pandemic began. Costs were already accelerating prior to COVID-19, increasing by 22 per cent between June 2018, when the Mayor publicly launched the project, and the 2020-21 Budget
• there is now increasing risk that the LLDC will be unable to repay all of its anticipated £520 million of borrowing and no planned date when this will ever change
• there is no Plan B if key organisations like the V&A do not eventually become tenants due to COVID-19
• despite being an entertainment hub, the park has made less of a loss during the pandemic because there are no events being put on.

Susan Hall AM, Chairman of the Budget & Performance Committee, said:

“The London Stadium is a financial burden on Londoners, and the LLDC must continue doing what it can to drive down the costs associated with it. In light of COVID-19 and the budget issues facing the Greater London Authority, our Committee can see where that money would be better spent.

“Another startling discovery that this investigation uncovered is that despite the significant annual capital spend on the Queen Elizabeth Park, the LLDC has decreased in value by £381 million between 2014-15 and 2019-20. This is a ticking time bomb for the next Mayoralty. Londoners should not be expected to keep pumping huge sums of money into a development that is not only dropping in value but doesn’t even begin to help address the capital’s crippling affordable housing issue, despite having the means.

“It seems like everything with the LLDC was set up with good intentions, but somewhere along the way things have been lost. From expensive white elephant football stadiums to low levels of affordable housing, it is hard to understand or justify the continued investment in this project which fails to deliver time and again. The 2012 Olympics are remembered which such pride and joy throughout the UK, it is a shame to see that its legacy is now a burden on Londoners instead of helping to solve some of the biggest issues facing our capital.”