ArcelorMittal Orbit tower 'losing £10,000 each week'

Boris Johnson's "curly-wurly" tower in the former Olympic Park is losing £10,000 a week as visitor numbers fall well short of forecasts, it emerged today.

The ArcelorMittal Orbit tower lost a total of £520,000 last year despite a profit of almost £1.2 million being forecast in its business plan.

Labour attacked the 376 feet structure, which was built with over £3 million of taxpayers' money as well as £16 million from steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, as a “Boris Johnson vanity project of towering proportions".

His Olympics legacy body reduced its annual visitor forecasts for the Orbit from 350,000 to 150,000 last year, with the latest figures showing just 124,000 visits were made in the year to March 2015.

The latest scheme to boost visitor numbers is the addition of a giant 178 metre slide, to be completed by next year.