A 5,000-page planning application detailing how the UK Olympic Park could be transformed after the 2012 Games has been submitted.
It will be themost important regeneration project that the city has seen in 25 years
The Olympic Park Legacy Company’s (OPLC) plans for 64 hectares of the venue in Stratford, east London, show how some of the five new neighbourhoods making up the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park development may look.
OPLC chief executive Andrew Altman noted that the application was “a significant moment” in making the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park a reality.
“This time last year we outlined our vision for the Park, today we are mobilising to make it happen,” he said.
“As one of the most important housing developments in London’s history, these five neighbourhoods will stitch together the surrounding communities of a formerly isolated area through new homes, schools, shops, parks, infrastructure and jobs.”
Chobham Manor, in the north east of the Park, will be the first development.
The neighbourhood is to come complete with 960 homes, a walk-in centre with two GPs and two dentists, two nurseries plus a small shopping area.
It will also have two community spaces and a spot for a Safer Neighbourhoods Team.
Three new schools, two primary schools and a secondary school, will support all the neighbourhoods and the surrounding area along with Chobham Academy which sits just next to the Olympic Village. It is due to open in September 2013.
The ideas behind the OPLC’s Legacy Communities Scheme (LCS) which forms the backbone of the application is that the new E20 postcode venue will have family housing and open spaces.
The Park will offer up to 8,000 new homes, with 6,800 included in the LCS. A further 2,800 units will be created in the Olympic Village.
The five new neighbourhoods – Chobham Manor, East Wick, Sweetwater, Marshgate Wharf and Pudding Mill Lane – will open in phases to the public from 2013. Families will move into the first new homes in 2015.
The plans could “revolutionise the face of East London and deliver a lasting legacy for the capital”, London mayor Boris Johnson claimed.
He said: “Creating a fantastic new community in which thousands of people can live and work, it will be the most important regeneration project that the city has seen in 25 years.”
Around 40 per cent of the homes are family homes, many of which will be terraced, and up to 35 per cent will be affordable housing.
Plazas, canal paths, roof gardens and cycle paths, including 29 playgrounds, are planned as part of the neighbourhoods which will sit alongside new landmarks such as the Olympic Stadium, Aquatics Centre and the ArcelorMittal Orbit.
Up to 130,000 square metres of employment space with the potential to provide around 4,400 jobs has also been earmarked, the OPLC said.
Other venues and programming on the Park are “likely “to take that figure up to 8,000 jobs with a further 2,000 construction jobs anticipated, they claim.
The submission to the Olympic Delivery Authority’s Planning Decisions Team – a separate body to the ODA which was in charge of the Olympic build and infrastructure work – triggers a 28-day consultation.
The OPLC is hoping to get the go-ahead before the Games begin in July 2012. They consulted over 12,000 people before the plans were submitted.