£400m needed to keep Olympic construction on track

Olympic bosses could ask the government for £400m to keep the construction of major venues on track during the credit crunch.

The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) will ask for £250m to prevent work on the Olympic village grinding to a halt next year.

It is also likely to ask for £165m in contingency funds to help along the construction of the media centre, which Carillion Igloo is struggling to raise cash to build.

According to the Evening Standard, Olympic chiefs will meet with the government on October 15 when they will make the request to raid the £1bn emergency fund.

They will also explore proposals to nationalise the Olympic village because of problems with Lend Lease raising its £450m share to build the project.

The newspaper reported that the ODA will be questioned at the London Assembly on Wednesday over spending so much of the contingency at such an early stage.

But to remain transparent the authority has commissioned an assessment to show the £250m bail out of Lend Lease is due to the credit crunch and does not breach European competition laws.