BOROUGH mayor Margaret Leicester said while £40.86million was a lot of public money from the national pot to be spent on Dorset’s police security, it had ultimately been a success.

She said: “It seems a lot of money but I suppose it was necessary. I think a lot of people will think we were over-exercised on security but when you’ve got to look after not just our own people but also all the people visiting from abroad, I suppose it was a necessary evil. We didn’t have any incidents but if we had, hopefully we’d have had sufficient police cover to make sure it didn’t explode into something dreadful.”

She added: “It’s very difficult to be negative when we had such a positive result in the end.”

Even Coun John Birtwistle, right, who was outspoken about the ‘unnecessary’ cost of Olympic security in the borough in the Games build up, admitted it had been a success.

Coun Birtwistle was away during the big event and expected to come back to disgruntled residents but instead heard only positivity.

He said: “From what I’ve been told everything turned out very well.”