“There were people off their heads, snorting coke in the toilets”

Some shocking claims have been made about the workers involved in the construction of Tottenham Hotspur's new stadium.

The delay to the opening of Spurs' new home has been well documented but now industry publication Construction News has sensationally reported that the workers on site have allegedly been drinking and taking drugs while on duty. One unnamed source alleges that when the site was at its busiest, "there were people off their heads, drinking cans first thing in the morning before going on to site and snorting coke in the toilets". At one point, the £850  million project is said to have employed a workforce of 4,000 and Mace, the company which has managed the construction, has come in for quite a bit of criticism in recent weeks after delays to the stadium's completion. One source quoted by Construction News has alleged that "what should take a week normally takes a month, because of the sheer scale of it, but also because the communication is horrendous". Spurs will continue to play their home games at Wembley amid uncertainty over when construction will be finished, with the publication estimating that it will be January before the new ground will be completed. Mace have refuted the allegations of drug use and alcohol consumption on-site. In a statement the company said: "Mace strongly refutes the image of our project painted by these anonymous allegations. The health, safety and well-being of everybody is, and has always been, a core value at Mace and any suggestion that our rigorous standards around best practice or drugs and alcohol had been broken would be taken extremely seriously. We carry out regular random drugs and alcohol testing to ensure that our rules are enforced throughout our supply chain. Any concerns about specific health and safety risks should have been flagged to Mace health and safety staff on the project. "The new Tottenham Hotspur stadium is one of the UK’s most complex and innovative projects. The club and the construction team are working diligently to complete the iconic stadium as soon as possible. Although these delays are obviously frustrating, once complete the new stadium is going to leave a fantastic, lasting legacy and will be a project everyone involved will be proud to be associated with. "As you would expect, the number of operatives on site has reduced as sections of the stadium have begun to complete, in line with our programme."