Regenerating the Lower Lea Valley

The Lower Lea Valley, covering an area on both sides of the River Lea and stretching from Hackney marshes in the north to the River Thames, is one of the largest regeneration opportunities in Europe. The valley is surrounded by five boroughs and contains both the Olympic Park and Stratford City developments, and offers a strong opportunity of achieving a lasting legacy of social, physical and economic regeneration from the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The regeneration of the Lower Lea Valley will adopt a holistic approach under the following three themes: Places, People and Enterprise. The result will be the transformation of the Lower Lea Valley into a vibrant, high-quality, sustainable mixed-use city district that is fully integrated into the urban fabric of London and set within an unrivalled landscape. Local people will benefit from the reduction of worklessness, particularly among the most disadvantaged, and local businesses will be supported to enable them to better take advantage of the opportunities presented by the 2012 developments and beyond.

Places

The Lower Lea Valley is identified in the revisions to the London Plan as having capacity for 50,000 jobs and 32,000 new homes. As such a series of preparatory studies have been commissioned that outline the frameworks to bring forward some of the infrastructural and physical development opportunities in the area and ensure high quality design principles are embedded therein.

  • Olympic Fringe Studies that will consider key design and linkage issues on areas around the Olympic Park. This work will have a direct relationship with the Strategic Regeneration Framework and the Legacy Masterplan Framework processes and ensure that the surrounding areas are seamlessly integrated with the Olympic Park area and that spatial benefits extend outwards.
  • Canning Town and Hackney Wick/Fish Island Masterplans, to ensure appropriate inclusion of the areas in economic development considerations.

  • Lea River Park, the creation of a continuous route from the Olympic Park to River Thames with two new major parkland destinations.

People

Local Employment and Training Framework (LETF) Construction Training and Employment

Through the LETF, the LDA has pledged almost £10m over three years to ensure local people are best placed to access job opportunities linked to the Olympic Park, through a range of training and brokerage programmes. A comprehensive construction site readiness programme is underway which includes CSCS card qualifications and a wide range of training programmes, including three state-of-the-art plant training schools. 

Women into Construction will help to increase the number of women recruited into the construction industry offering work placements and support into work. Local labour and business services in the five host boroughs support residents and businesses to compete for jobs and business contracts.

Thames Gateway Jobnet Job Brokerage

Raising the standard of integrated job brokerage provision in the area, this project supports and assists people in 10 east London boroughs to gain employment thereby spreading the economic benefits across the wider region. This has included the establishment of new job brokerage centres in Newham, Waltham Forest and Hackney

Joblink Employability Skills

The project delivers employability training to over 1,000 disadvantaged young people thus providing them with the employment-related skills leading to a BTEC Level 2 qualification, alongside FE college vocational courses, and offers a 26-week job placement with corporate partners in Canary Wharf.

Hospitality and Catering Excellence Project

Through delivering hospitality training, the project addresses demand and supply-side issues within the labour market to both alleviate the concentration of disadvantage and to provide employers with appropriately skilled catering staff, which currently constrains the growth of the sector.

Enterprise

The main Enterprise elements focus on the central role that Stratford City will play as an economic driver for the area after 2012, and on consolidating and developing employment uses in the core of the Valley.

Work on the Stratford Town Centre will involve:

  • Contributing to the Stratford Urban design strategy to ensure it includes some economic analysis of current and potential future retail and commercial performance.

  • The development of a Retail Skills Academy within the new Stratford City, due to open in 2011, which will allow for the development of a specialised retail sector within the local workforce.

Other key enterprise initiatives include:

  • East London Business Place (ELBP) is a local business support initiative working across 10 boroughs which, through a private/public procurement partnership, will assist local SME's to become fit to supply cascade opportunities gained through targeted buyer engagement and win at least £20 million of additional business arising out of Thames Gateway developments over the next three years.