East Village homes finished top 2,500 mark
Work on the former Olympic Village is nearing completion, with the tenth residential area finished, including 297 more new homes.
This brings the total number of homes completed by the Olympic Delivery Authority to 2,528. The homes have been handed over to the Village’s long-term legacy owners, Get Living London and Triathlon Homes.
Plot N03 (297 homes) is the latest to be finished, building on the completion of the previous nine plots - N10 (281 homes), N09 (120), N13 (185), N14 (201), N26 North and South (242), N15 (298), N02 (298), N01 (288) and N07 (318). In total there are now 1,324 private rental properties, and 1,204 affordable homes available at the Village. The first residents moved into East Village in late 2013 and there are now more than 1,800 people living in East Village including families, couples, individuals and sharers.
Since the end of the Paralympic Games the ODA’s development manager, Lend Lease, has been working with contractors to transform East Village from its use during the Games as temporary accommodation for athletes and officials into a brand new neighbourhood complete with 2,818 homes, an Academy, Health Centre, parks and open spaces, a new road network and a wetlands area.
New kitchens have been fitted in every home in the space used to accommodate extra beds during the Games, with temporary partitions removed to create bigger rooms. Painting and decorating, plumbing and electrical work has taken place in every home.
The work to transform the Olympic and Paralympic Village into the new East Village development has included:
- Installing 2,818 new kitchens
- 15,000 rooms being transformed within the homes
- 6,000 workers working more than six million hours since November 2012, including 2,000 plumbers and electricians
- Forty football fields of flooring laid
- 80km of fibre broadband lines installed
- Seven bus stops installed
- 276 bike storage units installed
- Eight kilometres of kerbing installed on the new road network
- More than 250 benches installed
- Four children’s play areas installed
- A major ‘mirror labrynth’ artwork by artist Jeppe Hein installed within the public realm area
- Completion of 25 acres of new parks and open space, including 2,500 trees, picnic lawns, flowering lawns, an orchard, and wetland area that links to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park wetland bowl, together forming one of the largest man-made areas of this rare habitat in the UK, with work being carried out before and after the London 2012 Games.
- Completion of the Sir Ludwig Guttmann Health and Wellbeing Centre, now open with more than 800 patients registered
- Completion of Chobham Academy, open since September 2013 with more than 700 students now attending
Approximately 300 workers remain on site working with Lend Lease and their contractors to complete the remaining homes in the last plot, which will be handed over in the next month. Health and Safety remains a key focus as the project nears completion, and to date, there have been 2.5 million hours worked without a reportable incident on the East Village retrofit.
A management office at 5 Celebration Avenue in East Village provides information about the new homes Get Living London and Triathlon Homes have available, from private rented apartments with Get Living London, to shared ownership, social and intermediate rent with Triathlon Homes. People can also find out more information and register their interest at www.eastvillagelondon.co.uk
East Village was recognised as the ‘Best New Place to Live’ at the London Planning Awards in February 2014 and as ‘Development of the Year’ in the 2014 RESI awards which celebrate excellence in residential property.
Each home has been checked by an independent certifier to ensure it is of consistent high quality and satisfies the requirements of Get Living London and Triathlon Homes.
Mike Cornelius, the ODA’s Director of Village and Commercial, said:
“East Village has really come to life and we are close now to completing the big task of transforming the former Olympic Village into a terrific new community for London. With more than 2,500 homes in this huge project now finished, it is clear that East Village is already making a big impact as a great place for families, couples and individuals to live, with the neighbours including Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and its terrific facilities for all ages.
“The scale of the work we have had to undertake has been enormous, and the site is still busy, as we work on the final residential area and put the finishing touches to East Village. We are continuing to go flat out with our contractors to complete and hand over the apartments and townhouses as soon as possible. Checking each home before it can be signed off has been a complex and time-consuming process but critically important in ensuring really top-quality new homes at East Village.”
Young residents of East Village are among students at Chobham Academy, which opened in September 2013. The first 105 East Village residents have enrolled, taking student numbers above the 850 mark, with more than 100 teaching and support staff. Further Village residents will be joining the school on a phased basis. The Sir Ludwig Guttmann Health and Wellbeing Centre, which is providing GP and pharmacy services for East Village and the wider local community, opened in November and now has more than 1,800 patients registered.
The N03 plot consists of seven residential blocks, with names with a connection to green, one of the colours of the Olympic rings: Emperor House, Limari Mansions, Applegate House, Istra House, Lucia Heights, Samphire Heights and Festive Mansions. Get Living London has 153 private rental properties and Triathlon Homes a further 144 affordable homes, available for social and intermediate rent and shared ownership. Each of the East Village plots was designed by a different architect to ensure a variety of styles and approaches. Patel Taylor, in a joint venture with Bligh Voller Nield, was responsible for the N03 plot, and Lend Lease for construction and post-Games transformation of the plot.
Last updated 20 June 2014 + show all updates
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A further plot as has been completed at East Village, as work nears completion. More than 2,500 homes have now been completed and handed over.
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A further plot at East Village is now complete, taking the total to 2,200 homes
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A further 288 homes are complete at East Village
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More homes at East Village have been completed and handed over
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Updating to take account of handover of sixth residential plot in East Village.
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Updating to take account of handover of fifth residential plot in East Village.
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More homes in East Village have now been handed over to the legacy owners
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Further homes in East Village have now been handed over
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Update to number of homes now occupied
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New story reflects handover of N13 residential area in East Village to long-term legacy owners.
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More homes have now been handed over at East Village, residents will start to move in shortly.
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First published.