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A plan to use the 2012 Olympics to rejuvenate London^s canal network, with millions of tonnes of goods transported by barge, has failed despite more than ^20 million of public money spent on restoring disused waterways.

John Armitt, chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority, said in an interview with The Times that only a handful of barges had delivered materials to the site, not the thousands planned.

Mr Armitt, who told The Times Cheltenham Science Festival yesterday of the ODA^s plans to make London 2012 the most sustainable Games, said that it had proved much cheaper to transport materials by road or rail. The ODA had intended to use the waterways that run through the heart of the Olympic Park and meet the River Thames.

British Waterways, which runs the country^s 2,200-mile national inland network, had envisaged a new canal freight industry in East London as a legacy of the Games. Three Mills Lock, the first new lock in London for 20 years, was built to keep the river level high enough for 24-hour deliveries to the site. The ^22 million project also involved dredging 30,000 tonnes of silt, gravel and rubble, as well as removing dozens of shopping trolleys and cars, to create a channel 2.4m (8ft) deep.

Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, said last June: ^By shifting noisy, dusty and heavily polluting freight vehicles from busy roads on to water, we can free up traffic and improve the quality of our environment.^

The network was designed to carry 12,000 tonnes of cargo a week, the equivalent of taking 1,200 lorry journeys off local roads. Yet only 3,000 tonnes have been moved by barge in or out of the park since construction began two years ago. Most of that has been construction waste removed from the site. Mr Armitt said the handful of deliveries had happened only because the ODA had put pressure on reluctant contractors to use the new facilities.

He said that some of the steelwork for the aquatic centre had been delivered by barge, but it was ^against the wishes of the haulage industry^ because it was more expensive and less efficient. He said: ^The simple and honest answer is that it is difficult to make the business case stack up for bringing large quantities by barge. ^

However, Mr Armitt, a former chief executive of Network Rail, said that the high number of freight trains serving the site meant the ODA had still exceeded its target of delivering 50 per cent of construction materials to the site by rail or water. He said that investment in the waterways was not a waste, it would provide a focal point for visitors and boat trips. The waterways would also be used during the games to remove waste.