LONDON (AFP) — London Mayor Boris Johnson slammed organisers of the 2012 Olympics that will be held in the British capital in an interview published Tuesday, saying they were clueless about what legacy the games would leave behind.
Johnson, elected mayor on May 1, said there was no "legacy masterplan" for the Olympics venues and insisted it was pointless ploughing money into the east London site if no-one knew "what on earth we're trying to achieve".
The Conservative Party politician took over from Labour's Ken Livingstone, who spearheaded the bid to secure the games for London. He has previously expressed concern at the spiralling costs of the project.
In an interview with London's Evening Standard newspaper, Johnson said he wanted a rethink to make sure Londoners were getting value for money from the games.
"There's no point sinking all of this money into east London unless it is actually going to produce a long-term return," he said.
"What we need to have is a complete overview of what on earth we're trying to achieve on the Olympics site and what in the long term is this really all about?
"So far, there's absolutely no sign of what you would call a legacy masterplan.
"There's no sign of anybody who has looked at this and said, 'Right, this is going to be London's Hyde Park of the east, this is going to be a university site.' No one has taken it and said, 'This is the future'.
"We need to get out skates on and work out what this thing is going to be for in the long term."
Johnson said there was no "convincing" long-term future for the main stadium as a home for athletics, the design for the aquatics venue made it difficult to transform into a leisure facility, while "nobody has got a clue" what to do with the huge media centre.
The cost of staging the Olympics and the legacy of what to do with Olympic sites once the two-week jamboree is over has long troubled host cities.
The 2012 London Olympics were originally predicted to cost 3.4 billion pounds (6.7 billion dollars, 4.3 billion euros). But the budget has now soared to 9.325 billion pounds.
Johnson was elected pledging to cut tax and waste at City Hall, giving Londoners "more bang for their buck".
On April 29, an influential committee of British lawmakers accused the 2012 organisers of lacking foresight and spending money "like water".
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