Future of Olympic stadium settled 'in the next couple of weeks'
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Your support makes all the difference.Talks over the future of the Olympic Stadium should conclude “in the next couple of weeks” and there is no danger it will stay empty, sports minister Hugh Robertson claimed today.
The talks are being held between the mayor's legacy company and four bidders, including West Ham football club.
A confident Mr Robertson suggested that the success of London 2012, in which the £429 million stadium in Stratford, east London, was one of the showpiece venues, means "it will not be a white elephant".
He said: "It is now such an iconic building. The Olympic and Paralympic Games have established the stadium as a iconic building for use.
"I am relatively relaxed about it (the negotiations over its future use) and can afford to be because it is not my negotiation.
"There is no danger of it being empty or a white elephant."
Having a football club use the stadium as its base remains one of the top options for the venue.
Mr Robertson said: "It will not stay empty. We already have a World Athletics Championships in 2017 and a series of small athletics competitions coming in the years before that.
"It is very likely that even if that was the only use of it, an event management company would come on side and use it for concerts and a host of other things but clearly many of us would like to see a football club in there because that would get it used once a fortnight at least."
PA
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