Missiles may be placed at residential flats for Olympics

Britain’s military has told residents of an upscale apartment development near the Olympic Park in east London it is installing a missile battery on top of a tower within their housing complex to defend the 2012 Games this summer.

The site is one of a number around the capital the army is considering as bases for surface-to-air missiles to protect the London games from an aerial attack, the Ministry of Defence said.

It is the first time such missiles have been deployed in London since the end of World War Two, shocking some residents at the Bow Quarter housing development, sited in a converted red-brick Victorian match factory.