Mayor of London Boris Johnson joined key investors in the future of the Olympic Park to discuss the park’s legacy programme.
“The doom-and-gloom merchants who said our great city would implode have been proved wrong,” said Johnson. “And they will be proved wrong again as we use the catalyst of the Games to attract investment into the wealth of opportunities arising in London now and in the coming years.”
As soon as the Paralympic Games end, the London Legacy Development Corporation will begin a £300m construction project to transform the site into the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. This involves removing temporary venues, such as the basketball arena and water polo arena, and transforming the permanent venues to make them suitable for everyday use.
Among the key investors at the press conference was iCity chief executive Gavin Poole. iCity recently won the bid to transform the 31,000-square metre media centre into offices, a data centre, London’s largest TV studio and high-tech production facilities.
“We are going to turn this area into an extension of Shoreditch and Tech City,” said Poole. “This will become London’s technology quarter, based around creative services. To achieve this, we want to reach into communities through the four Es: education, enterprise, employment and environment.”
The employment opportunity provided by iCity is large – more than 4,000 jobs will be created on the site, with another 6,500 indirectly created in the community. Poole estimates it will create a £300m uplift to Britain’s gross domestic product.
These jobs build upon the 10,000 new jobs delivered by Westfield Stratford City, Europe’s largest urban shopping mall.
After seeing the potential of the area from staging the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Westfield’s owners brought forward their investment plans for east London by “at least 15 years”, said John Burton, director of development for Westfield.
Before being cleaned up to host the Olympic Park, the area was an industrial wasteland. The change to the area has been undeniably positive, the panel agreed.
“Our performance to date proves that we picked the right location,” said Burton. “This is going to be a major success. The area is set to become the new metropolitan capital of east London.”
As well as the Olympic Park being transformed into the public Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, with repurposed community sports venues, two large residential developments are planned.
In total, five new neighbourhoods will be developed over 20 years. These will include up to 8,000 new homes in addition to 2,800 in the Athletes’ Village, three new schools, nine nurseries, three health centres and 29 playgrounds.
The current Athletes’ Village will be transformed into East Village, a complex housing 2,818 homes.
“East Village will be a place for everybody to enjoy the best of city living,” said Stuart Corbyn, chairman of Qatari Diar Delancey East Village. “New homes will be joined by first-class education, outstanding sports and leisure facilities, local shops, cafés and restaurants and unrivalled connections to the rest of the capital. This will be one of the most exciting places to live in London.”
A second residential development, Chobham Manor, will be created by house builders Taylor Wimpey. Nearly 800 new family homes will be built, creating the first of the five new neighbourhoods in the Olympic Park.
“Central London is moving east,” added Daniel Moylan, chairman of the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC). “Bringing the Games to east London has accelerated investment in an already growing area and now the world’s attention is focused on this fantastic part of the city.”
