Charity in £1bn bid for freehold of Olympic Park

The Wellcome Trust has made a £1billion bid to buy the freehold for the Olympic Park in a proposed deal that would pay off a large chunk of public debt on the 2012 Games.

The health charity's offer is for the 500-acre East End site that includes the stadium, the aquatics centre and the media centre.

But the trust has assured ministers and the Mayor - joint owners of the park - that it would honour the legacy strategy for the site. This means honouring a commitment for 11,000 new homes and working with sports venue operators such as the West Ham/Newham council consortium that has bought the Olympic stadium.

Wellcome's plan could be attractive to the Government and City Hall as it would wipe out the £675million borrowed from the National Lottery towards the cost of London 2012 and would begin to repay the debt on the land which has been taken on by Government. Whitehall sources said if the bid was taken seriously it would trigger a formal tender process to invite rival offers. This would be conducted by the Olympic Park Legacy Company.

The Wellcome Trust has a property portfolio valued at £14.5billion but it is thought that senior civil servants might be lukewarm about the offer as the charity's bid to take over the Millennium Dome 10 years ago came to nothing.

The proposed deal faces a further obstacle because Wellcome is among nine bidders for the Olympic village. If Wellcome wins the village bid, ministers could be accused of being influenced by the £1billion freehold offer.

The trust told the Financial Times: "In exploring [the Olympic village bid] further, we are giving detailed consideration as to how we may also become investors in the wider Olympic Park and optimise the legacy of the Olympics."

Last week was the deadline for final offers on the village. At a Cannes property fair, the legacy company went to market with the first phase of plans for 8,000 homes on the site.