A source said today: "It's difficult because, in this climate, no one wants to lend. The media centre is proving the hardest part of the Olympic Park to secure private funding for."
Without its share of the private financing, the Government will be forced to dip into a £1billion contingency fund set aside for emergencies. The fund is included in the total £ 9.3billion cost of the Olympics.
The emergency fund is likely to be needed to cover the £1billion cost of the athletes' village, the largest component of the 500-acre Olympic Park in Stratford.
With house prices falling, there are fears private developers will not be able to recoup their money from selling on the athletes' village as housing after the Games.
It has been suggested Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, would not relish using public money to bail out the Games.
Hackney Council is hoping the media centre will turn Hackney Wick into a creative centre - a sort of Soho for the East End.
But the Olympic Development Authority chairman John Armitt told a fringe meeting at the Labour Party conference this week: "The reality is that the situation is changing by the day. The amount of financing available two months ago was less than six months ago and it's even less after last week."
