East Village big winner at London Planning Awards
East Village has won the Mayor of London‘s award for planning excellence and been recognised as the 'best new place to live’.
East Village scooped the prestigious award for planning excellence at this year’s London Planning Awards, organised in partnership with the Mayor of London, London First, the Royal Town Planning Institute and London councils. It is the second year in a row that a project led by the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) has won the Mayor’s award. In a ceremony at City Hall, East Village also won the award for ‘best new place to live’.
The first 250 apartments and townhouses are now home to the Village’s first residents, and the rest of the 2,818 properties will be completed, handed over and occupied this year.
The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, praised the former Olympic Village, now transformed by the ODA and its contractors into the East Village residential development, for setting exemplary standards of design, environmental and accessibility, while providing all the amenities needed to support thriving communities.
“It is hard to believe that less than two years ago, East Village was home to superstars Usain Bolt, Jessica Ennis and David Weir as they prepared to do battle at London’s Olympic and Paralympic Games,” said the Mayor.
“Since then, the area has been transformed out of all recognition into one of London’s newest neighbourhoods boosting a range of high quality housing choices for Londoners.”
The design and construction of East Village was overseen by the ODA, with Lend Lease as Development Manager and sixteen architects working on distinct areas of East Village alongside Fletcher Priest Architects who developed the original masterplan.
ODA Chief Operating Officer Gerry Murphy said:
“We have invested a huge amount of time and effort into making sure that East Village would be a great place to live – building on the success of the Olympic Village to produce new homes of the highest quality, beautiful parklands, accessible for everyone, with unrivalled transport connections, and fantastic facilities to support the new neighbourhood.
“I am thrilled that East Village has picked up these two awards, which are testament to the hard work of everyone involved over many years.”
The scale and complexity of East Village is unique, and the planners had to rise to the challenge of accommodating 23,000 athletes and officials during the Games, to then be converted to more than 2,800 homes – far more than any traditional residential project would produce at one time. All homes have achieved Level 4 of the Code for Sustainable Homes, the largest project to so far reach this standard.
East Village also has a brand new Academy that opened last September, and a state-of-the-art Health and Wellbeing Centre with 500 Village residents and local people from the Newham area now on its books.
It has more than 25 acres of new parks and open space, with landscaping, spacious lawns, children’s play areas, and a wetland bowl that recycles water and links the site to Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
More than 500 people have already moved into the high-quality new homes, with more set to move in this month. East Village offers both private rental homes with Get Living London and affordable housing through Triathlon Homes.
Derek Gorman, Chief Executive of Get Living London, commented:
“From Athletes’ Village to new homes for Londoners, East Village is a neighbourhood like no other and we are incredibly proud to be named London’s ‘Best New Place to Live’. With hundreds of people living in East Village and more homes now available, these award wins are a huge boost as we continue to create London’s newest neighbourhood.”
Elliot Lipton, Executive Director for Triathlon Homes, said:
“The awards acknowledge East Village as ‘Best New Place to Live’ and for ‘Planning Excellence’, both of which are a huge honour. The mixed tenure of housing available at East Village not only supports the demand for homes for Londoners but offers a housing option un-rivalled in London.”
The annual London Planning Awards were created in 2003 to recognise projects, schemes and planning professionals and organisations that have made a vital contribution to the capital in making it a better place to live, work, do business or visit.
Last year the Olympic Park won the Mayor’s award for what the judges called the “dramatic transformation of east London and its spectacular showcasing of world-class planning, design and engineering skills.”