No ordinary park

Thanks to Stephen Cook @StephenDCook on Twitter for the tipoff here...
It's a report in today's Evening Standard relating to the Olympic Park.

Free bus tours of the Olympic park are on offer as legacy chiefs address concerns that it will be shut for two years after the Games.

Starting next week, the tours will show people the £300 million building work at the 500-acre site.

It comes amid fears the park will lose its links with surrounding neighbourhoods during building work and become a “walled city”.

Further delays to the reopening of the Olympic stadium were confirmed last week and if West Ham is granted tenancy, the football club will not play its first match there until mid-2016.

The northern end of the park will open for a festival in July next year but the main public area, known as the South Plaza, will not open until spring 2014. During the 18-month building project people will be able to take the bus tours to see the new park take shape.

The tours — on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, with some at weekends — begin on November 21 and run until the festival in July. London Legacy Development Corporation chief Dennis Hone said:  “There’s a lot of interest in what is happening to the park and we want people to know all about our great plans.

“This is especially important for those people living closest, who have lived with the ongoing construction on the site.

Go to this website to find out more...

You'll also find out lots more about the proposals for the park, which I have blogged about before. This has the potential to be a context for learning about regeneration (I'm trying to wean myself off the term 'case study') for decades to come...

No Ordinary Park from Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park on Vimeo.

Another option for visiting the Olympic Park would be to consult with John Widdowson and colleagues at Urban Geography East London, who offer fieldwork support for the Olympic Park and surrounding area.