London Stadium: Cancelled events will help save £7.4m in taxpayer money

The LLDC’s difficult financial position is laid bare at the end of the report.

Overall income from the entire Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park site is £15.2m. While total expenditure in the last financial year was £65.7m, the financing costs alone – which go back into the Mayor’s budget rather than to an external body – accounted for almost as much as the income at £13m.

Recommendations for addressing these issues are not due to be released by the report’s authors until the spring.

“There is no extra few quid lurking under the sofa for LLDC when it runs out of money,” it says.

“Many former Olympic parks across the world have turned into derelict, costly disasters.

“There is now a real threat that the very issue that was meant to be different this time around will be repeated, and that the capital will be bearing the legacy of a costly, taxpayer-funded albatross, hanging around the neck of Londoners for decades to come.”

A spokesperson for the Mayor of London said he he has been working with the LLDC to fix a “catalogue of appalling errors left by his predecessor that left the taxpayer to foot an annual loss of around £20m.

“The Mayor has made significant inroads to reduce the burden of the stadium on taxpayers.”

A LLDC spokesperson said it was disappointed by the “lack of context and errors in the report”.

They added: “Regeneration is vital at this time in creating jobs, neighbourhoods and investment.

“The 2017 World Athletics Championships, hosted at the stadium, alone brought in more than £100m of spend.”