Construction companies

London, Dec 10 (DPA) Construction companies working on the Games Village for the 2012 London Olympics could go bust because of the global recession, the head of the Olympic Development Authority (ODA) told a British parliamentary committee Tuesday.

'The risk to companies getting into financial difficulty and perhaps going bust is a risk to us,' said ODA chairman John Armitt. 'Hopefully we can keep a reasonable eye on the state of those suppliers so if somebody is getting into difficulty we can perhaps take mitigating action to reduce the impact of that.'

Any company collapses would be a further setback for London 2012 organisers, who have already had to reduce the size of the joint public and privately financed Olympic Village from 4,200 to 3,300 apartments because of the continuing fall in British property prices.

Despite the reduction in the project size, the ODA is still having difficulty in raising the necessary 1 billion pound ($1.48 billion) and is in discussions with Australian construction company Lend Lease.

Also Tuesday, David Ross, Olympic advisor to London Lord Mayor, Boris Johnson, resigned his post as a result of a share scandal involving Carphone Warehouse, the company he helped found.