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New Trees and Wetland Plants Turning Olympic Park from Brown to Green

Work is underway to create around 250 acres of new parklands, on former industrial land, that will provide a colourful and festival atmosphere for the London 2012 Games and afterwards become the largest new urban park in the UK for over 100 years.

The first of 4,000 new semi-mature trees are taking root in the Olympic Park with around 100 ash, cherry and hazel trees, grown in Hampshire, already planted.

The first of 300,000 wetland plants, grown in Norfolk and Wales for the UK’s largest ever urban river and wetland planting, were laid on the river banks today by Minister for Sport and the Olympics Hugh Robertson, TV Gardener Charlie Dimmock, Olympic Gold medal winner Jonathan Edwards, Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) Chairman John Armitt and children from the Olympic Park construction crew.

The new reed beds are being created in a large wetland bowl in the north of the Olympic Park, formerly a 100 year old landfill site, where visitors during the Games will be able to relax and watch the action in 2012 on live screens. In legacy the riverside area will be a tranquil space for people and wildlife which will also help protect 5,000 properties in the area from flooding.

New webcams enable people to watch the park taking shape first-hand at www.london2012.com

ODA Chairman John Armitt said: “The parklands will be the centre-piece of the Olympic Park during the Games and are at the heart of the long-term transformation of this part of east London. We have cleaned up formerly industrial land, much of it contaminated, and opened up inaccessible river banks to start creating a new great park that will be enjoyed by people and wildlife for generations to come.”

Wetland plants

Over 300,000 wetland plants are growing in Thetford, Norfolk for the UK’s largest ever urban river and wetland planting. Over 30 species of native reeds, rushes, grasses, sedges, wet wildflowers and irises have been grown initially by Salix in its nursery on the Gower peninsular in Wales with around a third grown from cuttings and seeds collected in and around the Olympic Park before construction started in 2008. The plants have been grown-on in waterbeds on coir mats in Thetford and are now being transported and planted on the Olympic Park riverbanks.

Trees

A total of over 4,000 semi-mature trees are being planted in the Olympic Park and Olympic Village, in what is thought will be the largest one-off planting of its kind in the capital.

Over 2,000 semi-mature British-grown trees have been hand-picked to form the roots of the central parklands. The four to seven metre trees, grown by Hilliers Nurseries in Hampshire, are predominantly native species such as ash, alder, willow, birch, hazel, cherry, poplar,London plane and lime. The trees will provide shelter from wind and sunshine across the park, willow, poplar and alder will be planted in river areas to withstand flooding and species vulnerable to climate change have been avoided.

Olympic Park clean up

The green clean-up of the 2.5km2 Olympic Park, much of it contaminated through decades of industrial use, has consistently beaten its tough sustainability targets since it began nearly four years ago. Nearly two million tonnes of contaminated soil has been cleaned for reuse on the Olympic Park in the UK’s largest ever soil-washing operation, over 98 per cent of demolition materials on site have been recycled, Ten football fields have been cleared of invasive Japanese Knotweed, over 20 million gallons of contaminated groundwater treated and over 5km of riverbanks replaced or refurbished with 30,000 tonnes of silt, gravel and other materials dredged from the rivers.

For more information visit: http://www.london2012.com/press/media-releases/2010/06/olympic-park-soil-washing-complete-and-green-build-on-track.php

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