London Olympics: Caborn Moves to Remove Covenant Blocking Games

Officials planning the 2012 games will seek Parliamentary help to lift a 19th century covenant banning the construction of any sporting facility on land close to that earmarked for the £270m main stadium.

MPs learned yesterday that the present objections to the games being held in east London were preceded several decades ago by a mystery landowner who imposed strict restrictions on the use to which his land could be put in the future. The covenant was discovered during the exhaustive land-registry search process undertaken as sites for the Olympic bid were being identified.

Appearing before the transport select committee, the sports minister Richard Caborn said an amendment was being inserted into the Olympics Bill to deal with the problem. It is thought that the compulsory purchase orders being pursued by the London Development Agency as it gains control of sites in and around the Olympic footprint may have been sufficient to overcome the effect of the covenant. But officials will go ahead with the amendment as a failsafe. The amendment will be inserted into the bill before it gets to the House of Lords. The bill is expected to be passed into law by New Year.

The sports minister reassured MPs that the dispute between the LDA and developers involved in the £4bn Stratford City project - some of which will comprise the Olympic village - should be resolved in the next 24 hours. Last week London's mayor Ken Livingstone indicated that the LDA would obtain compulsory purchase orders for swaths of the Stratford City land, a move bitterly attacked by the development consortium.