Yorkshire short £2m for Tour de France legs

Hosting the Tour de France for two days in Yorkshire has left the organisers with a potential £2.3 million black hole (AFP)

Hosting the Tour de France for two days in Yorkshire has left the organisers with a potential £2.3 million black hole, a report has found.

For two days in July the cycle race comes to Yorkshire but the costs of a contract crucial to the organisation of the event are more than double the £2.2 million originally estimated and budgeted for.

WRG, the Manchester company recommended to win the contract, has asked for £4.5 million to carry out essential tasks including the provision of hardware and services including barriers, stewards, traffic management, toilets, and first aid.

The £2.3 million funding gap has been blamed by the report on a failure when the original estimate was made to understand what was needed at the race launch in Leeds and the two race legs in Yorkshire.

"The estimate did not fully understand the scope of the event and therefore the quantity of resources has significantly increased," the report stated.

The report by Leeds City Council and TdF Hub 2014 Ltd, government-sponsored company managing the £27 million budget for the UK legs of the race, added: "It did not take into account the requirement to transport resources around Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Rochdale, and due to the distances and rural locations involved the rates have increased."

Sir Rodney Walker, chairman of TdF Hub, told the BBC: "We're confident we're going to deliver not only the largest event Yorkshire has ever staged, but we're going to deliver it on budget."