Reports in the Sunday newspapers suggested costs for the Olympics will soar, with Londoners footing the bill.

But Lord Coe, chairman of the London organising committee, said: "The reports are wrong. It is not the first scare story and it won't be the last."

Coe is confident the costs of staging the Games will remain at the present estimated figure of £1.5bn.

"There is an overriding ambition by all the partners in this process to make sure we deliver on time to budget and to the right spec," he told Five Live.

"We have a lot of things in place to make sure that we deliver on exactly that.

"I am not going to say that this is a risk-free process, there are a number of things you have to navigate.

"But unlike pretty much any previous city we went to Singapore with three very important things in place which have allowed us to develop the programme very rapidly.

"There was the finance, nailed down by government, the 500 acres of outline planning permission as well as the land acquisition.

"We have addressed issues early on and we know have the people in place to make sure the project goes ahead under the very best of protocols."