The Great Olympic Dream

The cost of staging the London Olympic Games in 2012 has increased dramatically since London's victory in Singapore in July 2005, with the original £2.4bn budget. Thousands people supporting Olympics were watching both on big screens in Trafalgar Square as well as at homes the celebrations of the unexpectedly won bid back then. Unfortunately, the mood among those fans is different now.

The final estimated budget for the 2012 London Olympics has gone up to £9.325bn. London may be overtaking Athens whose event cost of £6.9bn, was the most expensive in the history of the Olympic Games. Are the London’s Olympics worth any money? The truth is that to win the bid of hosting Olympics a figure cost had to be acceptable to British public. Olympics would not get as much support as they did if the public knew that it is going to be most costly sports event ever of which big part will be paid by London council tax payers.

Security, new homes in the Olympics zone, construction work etc. What does actually cost so much money? Delays in setting the budget raised concerns about the final bill among the public. Is the project still under control? Shadow Olympics minister Hugh Robertson said that: “While the figures remain ambiguous, we can only expect further increases." He also admitted that the secretary of state, Tessa Jowell: “has failed to disclose the true cost of VAT, contingency, building cost inflation and security, much of which was entirely predictable at the time of the bid.”

Ms Jowell said that despite the increases the Olympics would still be "great for Britain."
"There is no part of our national life that will not be enriched by hosting the games," she said.

Ken Livingstone argued that “The games will bring 40,000 new homes and 50,000 new jobs to one of the poorest parts of London.” While the cost of housing is rising in East London because of the games, houses in the area are more likely to become unaffordable, which is a sign of success and failure.