A London council spent £12,000 on the parade for the Olympic torch to pass through its areas during the summer games, a Freedom of Information request has revealed. 

Your Local Guardian reports:

It cost nearly £12,000 to host the Olympic torch parade as the flame passed through Mitcham, Colliers Wood and Wimbledon on the eve of the London 2012 Games.

Figures released by Merton Council under Freedom of Information laws showed  road closures were the biggest cost as Sue Barker, Lisa Snowdon, Andy Murray, and Venus Williams carried the torch in July 2012.

The total was £11,786.10, of which £6,846.26 was spent on road closures and  £3,842.97 was spent on four council community events held along the route.

You can read the full story here.

 

I am a journalist and author. I am a journalist at the UK edition of WIRED magazine. In 2015, my first book Freedom of Information: A Practical Guide for UK Journalists, was published. My second book Reed Hastings: Building Netflix, was published in March 2020. I created FOI Directory in 2012 and have maintained it in my spare time ever since.