A PHILANTHROPIST who set up a charitable foundation to help people in need in his home town raised more than £3,000 for his organisation after running the Reading Half Marathon on Sunday.

John Sykes, 43, who set up the John Sykes Foundation in April last year, completed the race in 1:41:08 on Sunday.

After the race he said: "Running the marathon this year was a wonderful experience. It was so well organised and is a great event for Reading. The community spirit was overwhelming, people of all ages came out to support us, offering water, jelly babies, bananas and even beer!

"The cheerleaders and singers along the route were fantastic entertainment and what I thought was going to be a long run ended up feeling much shorter than anticipated."

Mr Sykes, who owns the Atlantis group, grew up in Reading and set up the charitable foundation to offer help to anyone in the town who needs it, whether for education, training or help with health issues in cases where other charities are not able to help.

He said: "Our foundation plans to have lots of representatives next year who will take part and raise money for our Reading charity. I was the first to jump on our Skydive last year and I would not ever expect our fundraisers to participate in an event that I would not do myself! I was thrilled to run it this year and finish with a time of 1 hour, 41 minutes and 8 seconds and as well as thoroughly enjoying the experience, I was able to raise over £3,000 for the Foundation.

"Being part of the marathon is a fantastic occasion to build our community spirit in a wonderful town which I am so passionate about. I can’t wait until next year!”