£40m Olympic legacy pool scrapped amid funding fears

Plans for a £40m pool and leisure centre to be built at Olympic Park after the Games have been scrapped amid funding fears.

Local councils Newham and Tower Hamlets have frozen plans to commission designs for the building, which was to be built as a legacy extension to the Olympic aquatic centre.

The councils have also mothballed the £7m they were to contribute towards the project because of fears extra funding from private developers may not appear.

Cash for the £40m complex was to come via section 106 payments from private developers of a residential and retail scheme in the 2012 park.

Newham’s executive member for the Olympics Paul Brickell told the Evening Standard: “We were not keen to commit the money and order the designs because we can’t be sure the extra funds will be forthcoming.

“The problem is that nobody knows how much it will cost to decommission the Olympic venues and turn the area into a park after the Games.”