As the Olympics draw ever nearer, I thought it was time to find out just how long the Greater London council taxpayers will be expected to contribute to this vastly expensive venture.

My enquiry to City Hall elicited the following response from senior finance manager Ray Smith: from 2006 to 2016 Band D will pay £20 a year and 2017 approximately £9, total £209. What guarantee do we have it will end there?

Ken Livingstone remarked that it will cost each household the price of a chocolate bar a week for four weeks, then approximately £94. Did anyone really believe that unconvincing statement? Is anyone surprised to find our enforced contribution will have more than doubled in the past 11 years, because no-one in authority ever gets the sums right.

So, not only do we pay a contribution not asked of the rest of the country, which could probably have amounted to the price of a chocolate bar a week per family for two years, but we will also, according to Sebastian Coe, receive no preferential treatment in the allocation of tickets. And what of any profit from the sale of the tickets? Will we see the extra demand on our council tax reduced at an earlier date?

Don’t hold your breath because while those involved enrich themselves at our expense we are only important for the legalised theft of our taxes.

While Mr Smith justifies the amount we are made to pay because of all the benefits these games will bring, only time will tell if the Olympics will bring the long-lasting legacy he assures me of, but which have universally escaped all the other countries who have bankrolled the Olympic Games in modern times.

José H O’Ware
Rosemary Avenue, Enfield