In message , Mrs Redboots
writes

Improved transport links, new sports facilities, new housing

Virtually all of that is happening anyway, as was made clear in the
Olympic bid.

"they" say it won't be more than a few pence per inhabitant
overall.....

Have you not seen the figures?

The immediate direct tax on London council tax payers will be £20 per
annum for a band D property (for my small terraced house it will be £30
per annum).

As Baroness Blackstone confirmed in parliament two years ago, this
surcharge will continue until the cost of the games has been met. Even
then, the most conservative estimates were that this surcharge would
raise £56 million a year, and so would have to keep going for more than
11 years in order to raise the £625 million that Londoners are expected
to contribute.

This is before the inevitable doubling and then trebling of costs seen
in every Olympic bid over the last 40 years. No matter - we'll still be
paying, since Blackstone added "The duration and total cost of the
charge per household would depend on the overall cost of the Games" -
i.e. the more they spend, the more you pay.

The indirect costs to us all, Londoners and others, go into many
billions of pounds on top of that.

It pleases me not to be a wet blanket on a day like this, but I am
appalled at how people have been taken-in by the euphoria and have
failed to look at the costs - if the money involved was spent directly
on sport instead of grandiosity (especially sport at the local and
school level) it would have done so very much more good. Too late now,
of course - however much the builders and planners hike-up the costs, we
can't pull out now (as they very well know).

--
Paul Terry