01/12/2017 London News

Now on BBC One, it's time

for the news where you are.

Good evening from BBC London News.

"A catalogue of disasters" -

the damning verdict of a report

into the refurbishment

of the Olympic Stadium,

now the home of West Ham.

The initial build for the Games cost

around £400 million.

Then there was the additional 323

million to convert it into a stadium

suitable for football.

Now, it's been revealed

that the taxpayer could continue

to lose up to £20 million a year.

Our political editor,

Tim Donovan, reports.

It was the centrepiece

of a successful sporting event,

with high drama on the track and,

at the time, few problems off it.

Today, five years on,

it is being used by a Premier

League football club.

A sporting legacy ensured.

But the lucky tenants, West Ham,

don't own the stadium.

It was kept in public hands,

with costs and liabilities

borne by the taxpayer.

The big headache was making

athletics and football fit in one

place, having seating you could put

in and take out.

It was Boris Johnson

who sealed the West Ham deal,

but what was first estimated

to cost £190 million has

actually cost 320 million,

and the current Mayor

blames his predecessor.

It beggars belief, it's

staggering, the numbers

of bungled decisions made

by the previous Mayor.

A failure to properly understand

the cost of transforming a stadium

from an athletics stadium

to a football stadium.

Why should the London taxpayer be

subsidising a Premier League club?

Why should taxpayers around

the country be subsidising -

on an annual basis of up

to £20 million -

a multipurpose venue?

That 20 million is the loss the

stadium is heading for this year.

Rather than a small

annual profit promised.

The accountants also say that

West Ham should have been asked

to pay more than the £2.5 million

a year in rent.

Their report says the former Mayor

made things worse by insisting

on Rugby World Cup games

being staged here in 2015,

delaying preparations

of the stadium for football.

Boris Johnson wouldn't say

anything directly today,

but a close ally said...

Sentiments echoed by one of those

who ran Boris Johnson's Olympic

Legacy Organisation for a while.

Of course the costs have been

higher, but has anybody

behaved badly about this?

No.

What they've tried to do,

and what Boris tried to do,

was rescue a bad situation.

And actually, when you look at it,

the turnout, the outturn of it all,

is a very successful stadium that

attracts lots of people

and is very well used.

With the Mayor taking

over full control now,

Newham Council will not be getting

back £40 million they invested.

Of course it's regrettable that

we've lost some of that money

and we aren't getting it back.

But actually, we always planned

that this was going to be

a regeneration project and we've got

a fantastic stadium

and a fantastic park.

There is a visible legacy

taking shape, but some

decisions are now looking

dubious, with hindsight.

A situation, some argue,

where no deal for a bit longer might

have been better than a bad deal.

Tim Donovan, BBC London News.

A retired window cleaner who failed

to repay nearly £300,000

he inherited from an elderly

customer has been sentenced

to 12 months in prison.

Albert Pearce, who's 83,

from Finchley, befriended

the woman in her final years.

A court ordered him

to repay all he'd received,

but he failed to do so.

London's parks are increasingly

hiring themselves out for private

events like music festivals

and food markets.

And whilst that brings

in much-needed revenue for councils,

it can be frustrating for people

who want to use their local park.

We asked boroughs how

often this is happening.

Tolu Adayoye has the details.

Well, what happens here

is the massive stage is constructed.

You can still see the damage caused.

Some of the damage the Friends

of Finsbury Park have blamed

on the staging of the Wireless music

festival on the grounds.

This is supposed to be a park path,

but actually, what it's

for is for the big trucks to bring

the stage here.

They've lost their second legal

fight seeking to ban it,

in what's been seen as a test case.

These were the scenes two years

ago which sparked some

of the objections to the festival.

The group say they will

keep fighting to save

the park from damage

and preserve it for local people.

There's a massive

commercialisation of public parks.

That means park-users, residents,

people who normally use

the park are pushed out.

It's the disruption, the noise,

the actual damage to the park,

a whole range of issues that really,

people say - enough is enough.

And the number of private events

in London parks is on the rise.

It was recently announced that

a brand-new festival will take place

here in Victoria Park over two

weekends next year.

And in the years '16-'17,

London parks were hired out

for nearly 6,000 days for private

events, generating more

than £1.6 million for our councils.

That's a rise of 200%

over five years.

The council that made

the most was Haringey,

the home of Wireless Festival.

Is this all about making

money for the council?

Absolutely not.

The festivals generate revenue,

which is great for us,

we get to plough money back

into the park.

But it's also one

of the biggest urban

But it's also one of the biggest

urban festivals in London and it's

great that we have a festival

like this

in the heart of our borough.

It's fine, as long as the profits

can be invested into

the children's playground.

If it's away from

residential areas, fine.

But not presidential areas.

But not presidential areas.

I can understand they bring

in a lot of money but it's

a lot of disruption,

noise and mess and it

gets overrun sometimes.

If the money is invested

in the park, a couple

of weekends is not too bad.

Wireless has applied

to stage the festival again

in Finsbury Park next year.

As the number of events in parks

rises, the debate over how many

is too many looks set to continue.

Time for me to say goodnight.

And I'll hand you over

to Sarah Keith-Lucas

It is looking a little less cold

than it has been recently. Wintry

sunshine today, this is how we ended

the day as the sun set in Colston.

Red chilli, things turn a bit amount

and there will be some sunshine on

offer. Chilly out there. Clear

spells overnight and most places

should stay dry and it could be

isolated light rain showers.

Temperatures just above freezing in

urban areas. In the countryside,

below freezing. Frost, even the

light patch of ice, as possible.

Slightly cloudier on Saturday, and

temperatures between 5-7d. Through

the second half the weekend, a

cloudy and stamps start, that cloud

clears away towards the south

leaving sunny spells by the

afternoon and temperatures back into

double figures, something we have

not seen in a while. I will leave

you with an outbreak of the weather

in the capital and I will pursue to