A controversial decision to use public money to buy Olympic Games tickets for the mayor of Merton has been scrapped.

Merton Council announced this week it will not buy tickets to the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2012 Olympic Games, which would be used by the Mayor of Merton and their consort.

The initial decision last year to buy the four tickets, which would cost £4,000 in total, provoked outrage among residents and councillors who wrote letters and emails of complaint to this newspaper.

But on Monday, Merton Council’s leader, Councillor Stephen Alambritis, said: “As a host borough for next year’s Games we had expressed an interest that Merton’s Mayor for 2012 should attend these events.

“However, we recognise the understandable concerns our residents have about where the council should spend its limited finances and, combined with the disappointment faced by many who have applied for tickets to attend Olympic events, we have decided not to go ahead with purchasing them."

The u-turn comes just less than a month after the council leader gave a staunch defence of the decision in an interview with the Wimbledon Guardian.

On June 2, he said “I just felt, when the offer came in, it wasn’t for me to pre-judge what the mayor may or may not want to do.

“When you see the mayor out and about... and you see the satisfaction and excitement of children and residents that the mayor is at their venue, then you get to feel that it is an important position.

“And, because we’re a host borough, all the party leaders felt we should leave it up to them. But I agree, £4,000 is a lot of money, but being a host borough should bring in money aswell.”

Dee Doocey, the London Assembly spokeswoman for the Liberal Democrats, whose members heavily criticised the intial decision, said she was delighted that the council “seem to have bowed to pressure.”

She said: "This expenditure was always impossible to justify."

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