Skip to main contentAccess keys help

[an error occurred while processing this directive]
BBC News
watch One-Minute World News
News image
Last Updated: Wednesday, 6 June 2007, 07:10 GMT 08:10 UK
Olympic site firms 'face closure'
Julian Rosen
Some small firms cannot afford the cost of relocation
Traders facing statutory eviction from the London 2012 Olympic site, are struggling to find new premises.

Businesses in the Stratford area, east London, have only a month to relocate to make way for the development.

About 92% of some 200 firms have already found new sites, the London Development Agency (LDA) said.

But the agency said a small number of companies may have to shut down altogether because they cannot afford the cost of relocation.

Financial compensation

"There is a possibility that there may be a small number of businesses that ultimately go out of operation," said Gareth Blacker of the LDA.

"They will receive financial compensation but we think the number in relative terms is going to be tiny."

The LDA is in charge of relocating businesses, affected by compulsory purchase orders, from the Olympic site.

Julian Rosen, who runs a firm supplying hospitals and schools with frozen food, said he has spent a year looking for a new site.

"The time involved in finding these things, in negotiating them and securing them... it's very difficult," he said.

"And then you've got processes of negotiation with the LDA, with the landlords, with funding... it's all too much to bear really."


SEE ALSO

RELATED INTERNET LINKS
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites



FEATURES, VIEWS, ANALYSIS
Has China's housing bubble burst?
How the world's oldest clove tree defied an empire
Why Royal Ballet principal Sergei Polunin quit

PRODUCTS & SERVICES

AmericasAfricaEuropeMiddle EastSouth AsiaAsia Pacific