2012 badminton venue to be scrapped

The temporary venue at Greenwich Peninsula set to host the badminton and volleyball events in the 2012 Olympics will be scrapped to save costs, it was confirmed today.

At an assembly meeting at City Hall, chief executive of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCCOG), Paul Deighton, said that a draft conclusion of the report by accountancy firm KPMG recommended the removal of the venue.

“The draft conclusion of the KPMG report is that there ought to be an economic opportunity to shift, so over the next few months we will look at ways to shift that.”

But he added that it made little economic sense to move the controversial basketball venue at Olympic Park.

Jenny Jones, green party member of the London Assembly, said she was concerned the report had not taken the environmental impact of the temporary venues into account and demanded it be made public.

Mr Deigton said the report would make its conclusions based on the possibility of “economic savings” and that it was likely to be published before the end of the year.

Deputy Mayor, Kit Malthouse, complained that it was unclear what body took responsibility for the selection of venues and there was a huge degree of “smoke and mirrors” surrounding the decision making process.

In response, Mr Deighton said the process had “a great deal more coherence than you have alluded to”. He added that any financial decisions made by Olympic Board in relation to venues had to be backed by the treasury funding committee.