Queen Elizabeth Olympic park, London: The building of Europe's biggest urban park

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Queen Elizabeth Olympic park, London: The building of Europe's biggest urban park

By Keith Austin
The Olympic Stadium with The Arcelor Mittal Orbit and the River Lee, London.

The Olympic Stadium with The Arcelor Mittal Orbit and the River Lee, London.

Only when the last medal is awarded, the last samba danced and the final G-string plucked from between impossibly callipygian Brazilian buttocks will the work to cement the more lasting legacies of this year's XXXI Olympics begin.

The Jogos Olimpicos de Verao​ (Summer Olympics) in Rio are now less than six months away (August 5-21) but for many locals there, it's what comes after the 17 days of record setting, drug cheating and sporting hyperbole that's important.

After all, these days the Olympics isn't just the world's biggest single sporting event; it's often a way for governments to find the money to re-energise and regenerate rundown areas. But ever since the 2004 Greek Olympics, when the venues and various stadia quickly fell to rack and ruin due to a lack of a post-Games planning, no politician wants that sort of albatross around their country's neck.

The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford is criss-crossed by rivers, canals, wildflower gardens and bike paths.

The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford is criss-crossed by rivers, canals, wildflower gardens and bike paths.

Among the legacies promised for the aftermath of Rio, for instance, are new schools, parks and sport facilities. But saying and doing are two different things and a very close eye will be kept on whether those lofty and seductive promises are kept.

It's a familiar story – much the same assurances were made in the lead-up to the London Games in 2012. The £9.3 billion flung at the Games was spent with the assurance that housing, sporting facilities, new parks, you name it, would be available to the general public afterwards.

The main Olympic site in London was built on a swath of shabby and neglected land on the eastern outskirts of Tower Hamlets and Hackney, and extended out towards Stratford, where a new train station and a huge Westfield shopping centre (said to be one of the biggest in Europe) were built.

London's Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

London's Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

As someone who grew up in the area and knows what it was like before the world turned its attention on it in 2012, I've got to say the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park is a huge improvement – but then dropping a bomb on it would have been an improvement, too.

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Officially opened in April 2014 the park – the biggest urban park in Europe and the largest created in Britain since 1878 – still isn't quite finished. Some areas are still fenced off to enable new plants to bed in, the main 54,000-seat Olympic stadium is still being reconfigured before West Ham United take up residence next season and much of the promised housing isn't yet ready.

But despite this the park more than rewards a visit. After all, where else might you catch a glimpse of Olympic medallist diver Tom Daley or get to slide down a major public sculpture?

ArcelorMittal Orbit.

ArcelorMittal Orbit.

The park itself covers 227 hectares (all in turn covered by free Wi-Fi) and stretches from Stratford in the east up towards Lee Valley Regional Park in the north and out towards Bow in the east where it comes up against the watery barrier of the River Lea.

The approach from Stratford station more or less forces you through the massive Westfield shopping complex, where at Cafe Football (owned by Manchester United FC alumni Ryan Giggs and Gary Neville) you can order that old Cockney favourite, pie and mash, for twice what you'd pay for it in a more traditional setting on the other side of the park in Roman Road Market.

Better still to come at it from that western side, crossing the canal at White Post Lane or Fish Island and plunging into the gardens in the shadow of the main arena. Here, especially in spring, wildflowers grow in lush profusion, a riot of colours that lines the edges of the waterway circling the stadium.

Orbit tower at sunset.

Orbit tower at sunset.

It was here during one walk in 2014 that a blur out of the corner of the eye turned out to be a bird of prey plunging after a hapless pigeon. It was one of two birds employed on the site by the Hawkwise company to stop other birds from nesting there.

Elsewhere in the park dozens of happy, screaming children were running in and out of the time-controlled jets in the water park and a few hardy souls were paying £10 each to travel to the top of Anish Kapoor's​ loved/loathed ArcelorMittal Orbit sculpture.

Today, there are plans afoot to wrap a giant helter skelter around the distinctive bright red sculpture and charge visitors £10 ($19) a pop (£5 for locals and kids) to drop through 178 metres of tunnel in just 40 seconds, at speeds of up to 24km/h. Opening in spring this year, the $6.6 million ride will start at a platform 76 metres above ground and snake through the sculpture's distinctive helix-style steel latticework.

Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

Designed by Bblur Architecture, a London firm that also worked on the bouncy bridge spanning the roof of the O2 Arena, the tunnel will have a red base and a transparent top. According to the park's Legacy Corporation, it will be the world's longest and tallest tunnel slide.

So what else can you expect on a visit to Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, and does it live up to the pre-Games promise? Well, there's the aquatics centre, for one. The building alone – it won a Royal Institute of British Architects National Award in 2014 – is worth the trip. Sinuous and wavelike, it houses the Olympic-sized swimming pool, state-of-the-art gym, a hugely popular (and thankfully glassed-off and soundproofed) children's pool as well as Tom Daley's Diving School. Bring your cossie, because you will want to give it a go. Entrance is an affordable £4.95 ($9.30) and it really is a swimmer's pool.

Fencing and handball were among the Olympic sports hosted by the Copper Box Arena, a short walk away. Today it houses a multi-function community sports hall, 80-station gym, small cafe and is home to the London Lions, the capital's only professional basketball team.

Just to the north of that the VeloPark boasts the iconic velodrome, the teeth rattling bumps of the BMX bike track next to it and the eight kilometres of mountain bike trails just beyond that.

Throughout the rest of the park, which is criss-crossed by rivers, canals, wildflower gardens, inner-city wetlands and bike paths, there are innovative playgrounds, rope bridges and climbing frames for children, soccer fields and a hockey and tennis centre.

Snack bars dot the centre of the park but if hunger strikes too badly there's always the slick Podium Bar and Kitchen, right at the base of the 114.5-metre Orbit tower or, further north, there's the Timber Lodge Cafe, which is popular with school groups and parents because of its proximity to the playground at the rear. Just beyond that is Gaskell's Fort, a bosky dell filled with rope climbs, swinging bridges and twisted wood frames like some fairyland playground straight out of Peter Pan.

Overlooking this is the building site that will eventually become the 850-unit Chobham​ Manor, one of five new residential areas planned for the park. The athletes' village itself, now renamed East Village, has already been renovated and the units sold off.

Which brings us to the biggest bone of contention in the Olympic legacy; the provision of "affordable" housing for local people.

Of the 2818 units in East Village about half are market-priced homes and the other half are deemed "affordable" or for social rent. It's a 50-50 split that's higher than the London average of 34 per cent affordable homes in private developments.

Chobham Manor, on the other hand, will have only 29 per cent affordable homes, with the other four areas said to be hovering around the 31 per cent mark. The main argument from critics is that the term "affordable" is as slippery as the eels in the pie and mash shops and the amount of truly cheap social housing for locals is negligible.

That aside, the park is undoubtedly popular. According to park bosses some 4 million people have visited the park since the northern section first reopened in August, 2013. And in more good news, London's hugely successful bicycle hire scheme – the Boris Bikes that were so egregiously absent from the Olympic site due to sponsorship concerns – has now finally arrived at the park with eight new docking stations and 310 docking points.

One of the main effects of the regeneration has been a "gentrification" of surrounding areas – and the river and canals around the western edge of the park have changed from murky no-go areas to the perfect place to stop for a bite to eat while watching narrow boats, ducks and the odd serene swan glide by.

Here you'll find cafes and restaurants and art galleries, many with canalside terraces. One place that's said to have the best views of the Olympic stadium is Forman's, a riverside restaurant, bar and smokehouse specialising in Scottish salmon, while just along from there, in The Stour exhibition space, the Counter Cafe and coffee roaster serves food and drinks on its "tropical" pontoon on the River Lea.

For beer lovers a short walk across a couple of small bridges will bring you to the Crate brewery and pizzeria on the edge of the canal at White Post Lane. Set in an old industrial building the bar itself is made of old railway sleepers while pallet benches and plank tables sit outside next to the canal. The beer's good too.

Over in Rio the language officials are using to describe the legacy of the Games is eerily reminiscent of the rhetoric leading up to 2012. Foremost among the topics are the transformation of rundown areas and inspiring a nation to become fitter and healthier through sport.

Certainly this patch of East London has benefited from the former but the latter is another kettle of fish. Will it work in Rio? As they say in this part of London, I'll Adam and Eve it when I see it.

TRIP NOTES

MORE INFORMATION

www.queenelizabetholympicpark.co.uk

www.arcelormittalorbit.com

VISITING THERE

Guided 45-minute boat tours along the river that runs through Queen Elizabeth Park run daily between midday and 5pm. They cost £8 ($15) for an adult, £4 ($7.50) for a child and £20 ($38) for a family. Guided walking tours, operated by Blue Badge Tourist Guides, are also available and can be booked through its website. See www.toursof2012sites.com

GETTING THERE

All of the major airlines operate frequent flights between Sydney and Melbourne and London, including British Airways, Qantas, Singapore Airlines, Emirates and Cathay Pacific.

Keith Austin travelled to London and visited Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park at his own expense.

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