Out-Law News 1 min. read
26 Jul 2012, 4:48 pm
The London Legacy Development Corporation now plans to build a parkland area at the site, which would include a community building and play space for visitors and be themed on the local ecology.
The London Marathon Charitable Trust has contributed a £1 million grant to help fund the development, which will be the first area of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park to open from July 2013. It is hoped that work will start on the scheme after the Games finish.
"It will be one of the most beautiful green spaces in London with wetlands, clean waterways and beautiful parklands for everyone to enjoy," said Andrew Altman, chief executive of the London Legacy Development Corporation. The park was designed by Erect Architecture, which won a competition to design the scheme.
Situated in 1.75 hectares of land, the 550 square metres community hub will include a café, with capacity to seat 72 people inside and a further 120 outside. There will be an additional 140 sq m of flexible space that can be split into two separate rooms for community use or lessons.
The outside space will include a community events lawn for picnics, outdoor teaching sessions or small scale events which will be enclosed by a multi-stemmed hazel copse.
The outside park will include play facilities where children can build dens, grow plants and investigate insects, or climb trees and play on a series of platform walkways, slides and bridges connected to trees. There will also be sand and water play activities which can be used to build dams and locks to mimic the changes made to the River Lea after the Games.
Visitors will be able to access the Park through entrances in Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest, as well as via a pedestrian path through Eton Manor. The remainder of the North Park will open at the end of 2013, and will include the Lee Valley VeloPark and more access points for visitors.
The North Park will open in phases in 2013 with the South Park opening in spring 2014.
