Olympic legacy 'gave London a £4bn windfall'

Business Secretary Vince Cable today defended Government claims of a boost from the Olympics — including a £4 billion windfall for the London economy — but admitted some of the investment projects would have happened without the Games.

A Government report published today stated that the UK economy has seen a £9.9 billion boost in trade and investment from hosting the London Olympics and Paralympics.

In London, it credited the Games with helping seal the deal for the £1.2 billion investment in the Royal Albert Docks by Chinese developer ABP, the £1 billion investment in Croydon by Australian shopping centre developer Westfield with UK firm Hammerson and the £700 million investment in Battersea Nine Elms by Dalian Wander Group.

The report takes into account companies which stated their decision to invest in the UK had been influenced by the London Olympics.

Mr Cable told BBC radio: “Inevitably, the question you’ve rightly posed, ‘would this have happened anyway?’, well some of these activities clearly would but the Olympics were a key catalyst in making those investment decisions real.

“It’s reasonable to argue that a lot of these big inward investment decisions, there was a catalyst, they may well have been proceeding, but a lot of the negotiations that were brought to a head by the Olympics, by the top executives coming here, who were quite warm to the UK, were certainly thinking about it, but came here, and got involved in serious negotiations … and they progressed more rapidly and more positively than they otherwise would have done.”

The report says British companies won £1.5 billion of opportunities overseas, including work on other global sporting events such as the Brazil 2014 World Cup and Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and the Sochi 2014 Winter Games. It also says there has been £5.9 billion of additional export sales following Olympic-related promotions by the Foreign Office and UK Trade and Investment.