£10m fund to maintain stadium after 2012

The 2012 stadium will cost £800,000 a year to maintain after the Games.

The Stratford venue has no tenant at the end of the Olympics.

Authorities have now disclosed that a £10 million fund will be put aside to pay for ongoing maintenance.

The stadium, which will be reduced from 80,000 seats during the Games to 25,000 afterwards, will be the centrepiece of the games.

However, the cost has soared. The original estimate in 2004, when London was bidding for the Games, was £282 million.

But by November 2007 this figure had risen to £496 million and this month it emerged that it could cost £547 million.

Mayor Boris Johnson said. "We will have a world-class facility, which will be a wonderful thing for British athletics."

The stadium will have an athletics track which will allow it to be used for track and field events after it hosts the games and the Paralympics.

A secondary school will be based in the building and it will also house the English Institute of Sport and the National Skills Academy for sports and leisure industries.