This morning Locog chief executive Paul Deighton said that basketball will stay at its planned temporary arena in the Olympic Park but that badminton would no longer be housed in one in Greenwich, next to the O2. He seemed about to say more but was interrupted. This evening, the Olympic Board has issued its promised statement about KPMG's cost assessments so far. This confirms the basketball decision, says nothing about badminton - was Deighton speaking out of turn? - and says that no saving would accrue from moving equestrian events from Greenwich Park. Michael Goldman of Nogoe has sent me an email:
This changes nothing. We opposed the decision in the beginning. We hoped that the KPMG review might make a change but it has not. So we are back to the situation before the review was commissioned. The struggle continues and if it has become harder that only makes Nogoe more determined to reverse the fundamentally flawed choice of Greenwich Park, at least for the cross country event.
Meanwhile, at the Telegraph, Paul Kelso reports that shooting events might end up in a new greenfield site outside London rather than at the planned temporary venue in Woolwich. He continues:
The fact that a third option is being considered illustrates the tensions at the heart of the Olympic board. London mayor Boris Johnson, who insisted on the KPMG review, is keen to drive down costs and Lord Moynihan, chairman of the British Olympic Association, wants to see a sporting legacy from all venues. Their concerns over Woolwich have persuaded Olympics minister Tessa Jowell and organising committee chairman Lord Coe to grant KPMG more time.
That all seems to fit with Kit Malthouse's line of attack at the Assembly plenary this morning. Mayor Johnson's trusted deputy informed Coe, a fellow Board member of Johnson, that Locog was seen as arrogant, and when requesting clarification of how the Board makes decisions he seemed to imply that where the mayor has a defined and proper mission to make savings on behalf of London taxpayers, the priorities of other members were less clear.
Coe insisted that its members worked together wonderfully and that such was the general mood of consensus they had no need to break deadlocks by going to votes. Malthouse's intervention suggested that his boss doesn't see it quite that way.
