Taxpayer to cough up £35m for West Ham stadium revamp
British taxpayers will be handed a £35m bill for a planned revamp of West Ham United football club’s stadium in east London.
The government will fork out £14.5m of public money for fresh seating at the state-owned London Stadium as West Ham redevelops the west stand to bring fans closer to the pitch.
A further £20.5m will be spent to provide West Ham with stewards for the next four years, the Sunday Telegraph reported.
The 80,000-capacity London Stadium, which was originally built for the Olympics, is now home to West Ham.
The club has been reconfiguring the ground to bring fans closer to the pitch, which was surrounded by an athletics track.
Under a deal inked in 2016 West Ham pays £3m a year to taxpayer-backed London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) for its use of the ground. LLDC covers the costs of upkeep.
The stadium racked up losses of £450m in the five years to March 2020, according to accounts filed at Companies House.
This came after the costs of redeveloping the ground ballooned from £190m to £323m.
A spokesman for West Ham United, which is owned by millionaire duo David Gold and David Sullivan and run by Baroness Karren Brady, said the tender notice for the stand was at the “very early stage of a process examining costings and ideas for improvements”.