Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair said that Britain can be “cautiously optimistic” about London’s bid for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games.
Transport and lack of enthusiasm seem to be the key hurdles for London to overcome to win the 2012 Games. London reportedly was third behind Paris and Madrid during the shortlist announced last week.
Blair insisted that London’s problems were well known and being dealt with.
He said at his monthly televised press conference “it did not come as a surprise to us. One of the reasons why I think we can be cautiously optimistic, if I can put it like that, about the Olympic bid is that we knew perfectly well what the main point of criticism would be. It is on the transport infrastructure. We are now putting substantial investment into the Underground.
“We are committed to Crossrail and the other major London projects and we have to set out in the months to come how we are going to fund those and implement them effectively.
“There is no doubt at all that transport is a major issue for Londoners. But the only cure is actually to carry on with the program of investment and not to cut it back”.
