London Mayor Sadiq Khan has announced plans to take control of the Olympic Stadium after he claimed a “catalogue of errors” by his predecessor Boris Johnson led to the costs of transforming it into West Ham United’s new ground soaring.

An independent 169-page review was published today, which claimed the mistake had led to massively increased conversion costs after the 2012 Olympics and Paralympic Games.

It criticised a “bungled decision that has left the taxpayer to foot an annual loss of around £20 million ($27 million/€23 million)”.

“I ordered the review into the finances of the London Stadium to understand how key decisions were made about its transformation and why costs were allowed to spiral out of control,” Khan said.

“What has been presented is simply staggering.

“Not for the first time, it reveals a bungled decision-making process that has the previous Mayor’s [Boris Johnson’s] fingerprints all over it.”

It was revealed last year that West Ham, which is not directly criticised in the report, will pay only £2.5 million (£3.4 million/€2.8 million) rent for its new home under a 99-year teneancy deal agreed in 2013.

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An independent review, which had been commissioned in March, discovered the conversion cost £323 million ($435 million/€367 million) when the original estimate had been £190 million.

It meant the total cost of the Stadium rose to £750 million ($1 billion/€850 million).

Khan claimed Johnson’s decision to make taxpayers  to pay the bill means Londoners will have to shoulder a predicted loss of £24 million ($32 million/€27 million) this financial year.

He has now promised to take control of the London Stadium – as it is now called – in order to “renegotiate deals” and “minimise ongoing losses”.

According to the review, policing and stewarding costs have “increased notably”.

The failure to secure a deal on naming rights for the Stadium, forecast to bring income of £4 million ($5.5 million/€4.5 million) a year, and a shortfall in “commercial income” from catering and other sales so big that it does not even cover the payment to the operator Vinci.

Other financially damning misjudgments over costs included estimates of the retractable seating that allows the 60,000 capacity Stadium to be used for Premier League football during the season, but other events such as athletics in the summer.