Olympics 'draining cash from museums'
By JAMES CHAPMAN
Last updated at 01:23 25 June 2007
Funding for museums and art galleries is being raided to pay for the 2012 Olympics, MPs are to warn.
The Commons Culture committee will insist Lottery money which is being diverted to help meet the £10billion bill must be repaid after the Games.
The heritage sector is facing a loss of at least £160million in Lottery funding because of the Olympics, its report found.
The Heritage Lottery Fund told MPs it would be ' impossible' to support major projects - such as the transformation of the British Museum - as it had done in the past.
The committee will ask the Government to pledge that no more money will be diverted from heritage projects if the Olympic bill rises even further.
Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell has dismissed the fears, saying no Lottery-funded project will be affected until 2009 and that they will have first call on the profits from the sale of land after the Olympics.
Most watched News videos
- New video shows Epstein laughing and chasing young women
- British Airways passengers turn flight into a church service
- Epstein describes himself as a 'tier one' sexual predator
- Skier dressed as Chewbacca brutally beaten in mass brawl
- Two schoolboys plummet out the window of a moving bus
- Buddhist monks in Thailand caught with a stash of porn
- Melinda Gates says Bill Gates must answer questions about Epstein
- Police dog catches bag thief who pushed woman to the floor
- Holly Valance is shut down by GB News for using slur
- JD Vance turns up heat on Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor
- Sarah Ferguson 'took Princesses' to see Epstein after prison
- China unveils 'Star Wars' warship that can deploy unmanned jets
