Anish Kapoor’s Orbit losing £10,000 a week, described as ‘standout success’ for Olympic legacy

‘Pointless monument at vast taxpayer expense’ isn’t bringing in the £1.2m annual profit forecast

8. Tower power Anish Kapoor's tangled red sculpture, the ArcelorMittal Orbit, re-opens to the public today in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The attraction, which became an icon of the 2012 Olympic Games, will launch with an aerial performance, Taiko drummers, creative workshops and a parade. Visitors can soak up the carnival atmosphere and ascend to the viewing platform; £15. arcelormittalorbit.com

Sir Anish Kapoor’s red, twisted ArcelorMittal Orbit sculpture in London’s Queen Elizabeth Park might have been “one of the standout successes of the 2012 Olympic Games”, but it is certainly not a financial triumph having lost £10,000 a week last year.

The Orbit, which was nicknamed “Boris’s Folly” and provoked a barrage of criticism when designs were first unveiled, cost the ArcelorMittal steel company who sponsored it £16m and the government a further £3m.

Visitors to the Queen Elizabeth Park can pay £10 per person to go up the tower and the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) predicted revenues from this would bring in an annual profit of £1.2m.

However, the attraction made a loss of £520,000 in 2014.

New figures released by the LLDC show the extent of the project’s losses but the organisation defended it, describing it as “one of the standout successes of the 2012 Games”.

Labour leader at the London Assembly, Len Duvall, described the orbit as “a pointless monument at vast taxpayer expense” and said it was “another Boris Johnson vanity project of towering proportions”.

The sculpture was not open to visitors during the Olympics in London due to fears over terrorism.

It closed to be adapted for long-term use after the Games and only reopened in April 2014.

LLDC said nearly 200,000 people have visited the sculpture since it reopened but downgraded its original forecast of 350,000 visitors per year to 150,000.

The LLDC said it was “constantly looking at ways to enhance the experience to attract more people” and will add a giant slide to the work in summer 2016.

A new tunnel slide is to be built from the top of the ArcelorMittal Orbit tower at London's Olympic Park (Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park)

It has been a difficult year for British-Indian Turner Prize-winning sculptor Sir Anish whose Versailles sculpture Dirty Corner was vandalised with anti-Semitic graffiti last month.

The artist has since been embroiled in a legal row over whether or not the graffiti will need to be removed, having decided - much to the chagrin of Versailles councillor Fabien Bougle — to incorporate the graffiti in a development of the work.

Dirty Corner, nicknamed ‘The Queen’s Vagina’ by the press, has been vandalised three times and was splattered with yellow paint earlier this year.