Tessa Jowell: give East End a front row seat in Olympic marathon

Tessa Jowell today called on London 2012 chiefs to rethink their plan for the Olympic marathon to be run in central London avoiding the East End.

The former Olympics minister asked for East End boroughs to be given a "front-row seat" on the route of the 26.2-mile race as she promised during the bid for the Games.

Ms Jowell suggested a meeting between 2012 organiser Locog and Newham and Tower Hamlets councils. She said: "I think it is important to get everyone around a table to explore whether there is any alternative that gives Tower Hamlets the front-row seat that its residents expected."

Opposition to the new route grew today as one of London's biggest landlords, Canary Wharf Group, signed a petition drawn up by Tower Hamlets.

Howard Dawber, strategic adviser at Canary Wharf Group, said: "The people of east London deserve a chance to see these elite athletes competing on their streets."

Patrick Edwards of the London Thames Gateway Development Corporation, the regeneration agency for east London, said the new route was the "equivalent of missing a shot at an open goal".

2012 chief Sebastian Coe yesterday said the route was devised for operational reasons.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in