The Cost of The Olympics

Suddenly, the budget for the Olympics has trebled to £9.3 billion.

The most outspoken criticism came from Derek Mapp, the chair of Sport England. He said the diversion of £55.9m of Sport England's income was "a cut too far and seriously endangers the creation of a sporting legacy from the 2012 games. The true loss, he said, would be £223m because almost £3 is levered in for every £1 invested.

He said that in the best case scenario 186,000 fewer people would be taking part in sport. "Grassroots sport has benefits of reducing obesity and crime and the government spends £8.2bn a year because we are an unfit nation. We are the biggest tool to make a change, yet we are being cut," Mr Mapp said.

Helen Jefferson Lenskyj, author of two books on the impact of the Olympics, says that an affordable housing legacy is unlikely to materialize, and that, in fact, conditions for homeless and inadequately housed people are exacerbated by hosting the Olympics.

Her paper notes several interrelated housing trends in many Olympic host cities, including: evictions of tenants in low-rent housing, particularly in “Olympic precincts”; a significant decrease in boarding-house stock; evictions resulting from gentrification and beautification of low-income areas; artificially inflated real- estate prices; unchanged or weakened tenant-protection laws; the criminalization of poverty and homelessness; temporary or permanent privatization of public spaces; and temporary suppression of human rights, particularly freedom of assembly.