£100m a month spent on 2012 Olympics

1:43pm Wednesday 3rd December 2008

A total of £100 million a month is currently being spent on building work for the London 2012 Games, Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell said.

Noting the scale of the £9.3 billion Olympic budget, she said: "The Delivery Authority (in charge of Olympic build and infrastructure) is now spending at the rate of £100 million a month - 23% of the construction having been committed and only 9% of the contingency to this date."

She told local authority officials at a London conference there would be "no more public money" for the £9.325 billion budget which is treble original estimates.

She said: "The Exchequer is contributing 64% of that cost, the Lottery is contributing 23%, broadly in line with Lottery contribution to the Millennium and London taxpayers are contributing somewhere around 11% of the total.

"The budget is identified and remains the same now as it did when I made the revised budget which I said we would always have to do.

"There is no more money and as I have said before we are on time and on budget."

Ms Jowell suggested that amid the looming recession and despite concerns about the timing of the bid for the Olympics, staging the Games was a positive thing.

"The Olympics is essentially economic gold at a time of economic need - a shot in the arm for investment," she said.

She urged town hall officials not to lose the chance to get involved.