£95m Released For 2012 Olympic Village

The government has dipped into the contingency fund for the London 2012 Olympics releasing £95m towards construction costs for the Olympic Village at the East London site of Games.

Games organisers had only secured half of the £1bn needed for the Stratford athletes’ village and Hackney media centre, it was revealed last month, and the economic meltdown has prompted the government to use the contingency funds to cover the deficit.
 
The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) and the two builders involved have not agreed a final contract for the sites.

The overall budget for the 2012 Games is £9.3bn with the contingency funding making up £2.2bn of the total figure.

A spokesman for the ODA said: ‘Work on the village continues on schedule and piling has been completed on the first three blocks.

‘£95m of interim funding has been allocated to the ODA from contingency to enable building to progress.

‘Discussions on long-term funding arrangements are continuing in what is clearly a very difficult economic environment.’

Athletes will stay in the 3,000-home Olympic Village during the 2012 Games – the biggest component of the 500-acre Olympic Park – which is being built by Australian firm Lend Lease.

The media centre – to be built by Carillion Igloo – will house 20,000 broadcasters, photographers and journalists.