BBC News London has revealed that the cost of policing West Ham games has more than trebled at the London Stadium.
Quoting a freedom of information response from the Met Police the BBC say the cost of policing the Boleyn Ground between August-October 2015 was £108,387. In contrast the same period August-October 2016 in the London Stadium has soared to £381,741.
Focusing just on the month of October the BBC claimed it cost just £25,105 to police at the Boleyn Ground in 2015 but this rose to £238,021 in October 2016 at the London Stadium although they later admitted it wasn’t a fair comparison after saying West Ham played just one game at home in 2015 compared to 3 home games in October last year.
London Assembly member Andrew Dismore told the BBC “It’s this ridiculous sweet heart deal they have got already when no matter how many police officers are called to deal with a West Ham game they simply pay the same. If you think about the last West Ham v Chelsea game, they had 520 police officers on duty, that’s equivalent of an entire London borough both on and off duty. That can’t be right!”
Sweetheart deal lmao. So happens we were the only sweetheart in town so get over yourself.
Incompetent stewarding and segregation is what has led to increased policing costs. All down to the stadiums owners. And why hasn’t there been any calls for them to reveal all the offers they had for tenants who wanted to take the ****bowl on so we can judge which was the best deal ?
True, in reality the BBC planned to run a segment on the violence at Monday’s West Ham v Chelsea game. When there was no trouble they filled the segment with another cheap shot at West Ham. In truth they were no other bidders, it was a buyers market.
The stadium didn’t budget well enough and their business case for financial viability was deeply flawed. Emirates had similar problems with stewarding and policing costs when they opened. All of this should and could and should have been foreseen.
It was Lord Coe’s, Tessa Jowell and Ken Livingstone fault in not designing the stadium for football and football segregation in the first place.
It was then compounded by Spurs, Orient and that architect Steven Lawrence stopping us owning the stadium.
Finally it was the fault of the government negotiators and lawyers who failed to put in clause into the contract to cover increases in security and policing.
I am not saying West Ham are completely blameless but who would voluntary pay more for a service that they agreed a fixed price 99 years in advance.
Your right in who is to blame Sean for the original design, but if Orient and their co-horts hadn’t scuppered the original deal, the removable seating would never have happened.
As you know, the DS,DG & Brady would of been happy for the fans to be sitting the wrong side of the running track.
Not true Nigel, we don’t know and will never know. If we owned the stadium we could what we like, that’s the point
Good old Auntie. Neutral reporting at its best,eh?