MPs slam national stadium funding
MPs have criticised the development of the new national stadium at Wembley, suggesting the old stadium was closed too early and that public funds should not have been released so easily.
The Commons Public Accounts Committee submitted a highly critical report in which they suggested that the inclusion of an athletics track was merely a “device” to keep £20 million worth of funding.
Development of Wembley, which is due to be completed by spring 2006, is expected to cost more than £750 million, of which £161 million has come from public funding.
And Committee members have cast doubt on the value of that public funding, particularly as Sport England granted £120 million of lottery funding without assurances of the success of the project.
“Now the decision has been made, after much toing and froing, to include athletics provision, it is not clear that the new stadium will ever actually be used to stage a major athletics event,” the MPs said.
“It seems to us therefore that the decision to restore provision for athletics was little more than a device to keep in the project the £20 million that the Football Association would otherwise have had to repay.”
They also expressed their concern that no specific athletics event had linked with the new stadium, and suggested that only a handful of track and field competitions may be staged in the next few decades.
