London Olympic park loses 75% book value: Londoners wince
THE London Olympics are coming and The Olympic Park is looking like a bad investment. The 500-acre site was to be sold off for between £1billion and £2billion after the Games.
Only the land is now worth just £157m if it was sold in lots and £138 as a big lump. Surely 250-acres of parkland, the Olympic Stadium and the Aquatics Centre, which includes two 50m swimming pools and a diving pool, is worth more than that? How much more? Well, the land was bought with public money – £750m of it.
This low valuation by Jones Lang LaSalle is not pretty. How is the Government going to pay £675m to the lottery and £230m to the Greater London Authority without the money from the sale of the Olympic Park?
And why did the London Development Agency value the land at £750m in the first place?
What is the commercial worth of 500-acres of land in the East of London?
We don’t know.
Sir Edward Lister, the deputy London mayor, told the London Assembly the land had been given a “reasonably pessimistic” valuation for accounting purposes.
So. How will the GLA gets the shortfall is the pessimism turns out to be real? Answer: the London taxpayer.
But what if Sir Edward is right? Only last year, the Wellcome Trust bid £1bn for the site. The Olympic Park Legacy Company declined the bid.
Things might not be that bad. But the Londoners paying for the Olympics who couldn’t even get a ticket will be less enthused. The Olympic council tax levy which costs Londoners an extra £20 a year is due to expire in 2016. What odds it lasts longer..?
Posted: 9th, January 2012 | In: Sports Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
