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London 2012 Olympic construction generated £7.3 billion

Thursday, 15 November 2012
By Emily Goddard

london 2012 constructionNovember 15 - Construction of London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic venues injected £7.3 billion ($11.6 billion/€9.1 billion) in to the British economy, according to an independent report commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Produced by a consortium led by Grant Thornton, the report found that the £6.5 billion ($10.3 billion/€8.1 billion) of Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) spend on the construction of facilities and infrastructure is estimated to have generated £7.3 billion ($11.6 billion/€9.1 billion) of Gross Value Added (GVA) and 158,600 jobs years of employment in the five-year construction period from 2007.

London, the South East and the East of England enjoyed the biggest economic boost from the ODA's spending – more than the rest of the UK combined.

Indeed, London gained 54 per cent of the contracts translating to an extra £2.8 billion ($4.4 billion/€3.5 billion) value added, while the southeast gained £1.05 billion ($1.7 billion/€1.3 billion) and the east £950 million ($1.5 billion/€1.2 billion).

The rest of the United Kingdom made a combined total of £2.48 billion ($3.93 billion/€3.1 billion) from the ODA's investment.

Sand Delivery to London 2012 Olympic Games Beach Volleyball Venue at Horse Guards ParadeLondon gained 54 per cent of the London 2012 construction contracts, like here at Horse Guards Parade, which hosted the beach volleyball

The dossier also shows that construction, as an industry, gained the most jobs from the ODA's expenditure of the economic sectors measured with over 45,000 job years between 2007 and the first quarter of 2012.

However, this figure does not take into account other construction jobs that would have existed had the Olympics and Paralympics not taken place.

Meanwhile, the report said the CompeteFor programme, which raised awareness of Games-related contract opportunities for small businesses, had "limited influence on the regional distribution of ODA contracts", although firms based in the West Midlands had been particularly successful in picking up work through the system.

The fifth and final report in the series will assess the impacts during London 2012 and of immediate post-Games activities and is due to be published by summer 2013.

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