Escape Worldwide’s offices are located in Stratford, East London, home of the 2012 Olympic Games. Over the past months we’ve gradually watched various venues being built, and with the Olympic stadium being just a 15 minute walk from our office, it’s been an interesting period – if somewhat chaotic! With three years to go, the pace is hotting up.
So here we are, 2 years after the initial announcement was made that the world was coming Stratford in 2012, and we have to admit, from our window we are very impressed with what has been going on. We’ve had a lot of disruption to normal life, with unannounced road closures causing traffic chaos being commonplace, noise from the demolition and reconstruction process becoming quite draining, and a semi-permanent layer of dust and dirt over everything, but the area is undergoing a really major transformation, so it’s nothing we didn’t expect.
Just outside our office block, Channelsea House, is a walkway and cycle path called the Greenway, which weaves its way through a few miles of East London. We are on the section that leads from the nearby underground station to the Olympic area, so this area is currently undergoing a major facelift - in fact the contractor that is doing the work is in the office next door to ours! They seem to be getting on with it well and lots of it has been resurfaced and being prepared for planting. One main problem though, is that we can’t have our windows open most of the time for all the noise coming from just outside - maybe the London Development Agency would like to treat us to some cooling fans!
The most impressive development, however, is in the distance from us - the Olympic Stadium, which we have seen take shape over the past months. It’s less than a mile from the office so we get a pretty good view, and can see the continued progress on almost a daily basis – just last week, the final pieces of the main support structure were put in to place.
At the start of the process, Channelsea House was earmarked to be demolished to make way for new walkways linking the nearby underground station to the Olympic Stadium. On the other side of the building, we overlook the Channelsea River, which links through to the River Lea, and this was to become a recreational area for boating and other activities. After various consultations and revamped plans (one even suggesting we just lost one end of our building including the lift shaft and front door – the planners don’t seem to have thought that idea through too carefully!) it was finally decided to leave things as they are, and scale back the plans for walkways and boating lakes. It’s good news for us as we didn’t really want to relocate, so the less disruption on our doorstep the better.
To be honest, I think all of us in the office were a little sceptical that we would ever see a stadium let alone so well in advance of 2012, especially after it seemed to take months to decided if our building was staying put just for a bit of greenery! For local people like us it has been hard work, the amount of extra lorries etc on the roads and road closures has meant getting to work can be a real nightmare - and it’s only going to get worse! Still, credit where credits due, from where we sit the stadium does look pretty impressive.
http://www.escapeworldwide.co.uk/
So here we are, 2 years after the initial announcement was made that the world was coming Stratford in 2012, and we have to admit, from our window we are very impressed with what has been going on. We’ve had a lot of disruption to normal life, with unannounced road closures causing traffic chaos being commonplace, noise from the demolition and reconstruction process becoming quite draining, and a semi-permanent layer of dust and dirt over everything, but the area is undergoing a really major transformation, so it’s nothing we didn’t expect.
Just outside our office block, Channelsea House, is a walkway and cycle path called the Greenway, which weaves its way through a few miles of East London. We are on the section that leads from the nearby underground station to the Olympic area, so this area is currently undergoing a major facelift - in fact the contractor that is doing the work is in the office next door to ours! They seem to be getting on with it well and lots of it has been resurfaced and being prepared for planting. One main problem though, is that we can’t have our windows open most of the time for all the noise coming from just outside - maybe the London Development Agency would like to treat us to some cooling fans!
The most impressive development, however, is in the distance from us - the Olympic Stadium, which we have seen take shape over the past months. It’s less than a mile from the office so we get a pretty good view, and can see the continued progress on almost a daily basis – just last week, the final pieces of the main support structure were put in to place.
At the start of the process, Channelsea House was earmarked to be demolished to make way for new walkways linking the nearby underground station to the Olympic Stadium. On the other side of the building, we overlook the Channelsea River, which links through to the River Lea, and this was to become a recreational area for boating and other activities. After various consultations and revamped plans (one even suggesting we just lost one end of our building including the lift shaft and front door – the planners don’t seem to have thought that idea through too carefully!) it was finally decided to leave things as they are, and scale back the plans for walkways and boating lakes. It’s good news for us as we didn’t really want to relocate, so the less disruption on our doorstep the better.
To be honest, I think all of us in the office were a little sceptical that we would ever see a stadium let alone so well in advance of 2012, especially after it seemed to take months to decided if our building was staying put just for a bit of greenery! For local people like us it has been hard work, the amount of extra lorries etc on the roads and road closures has meant getting to work can be a real nightmare - and it’s only going to get worse! Still, credit where credits due, from where we sit the stadium does look pretty impressive.
http://www.escapeworldwide.co.uk/
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