East London Waterworks | A Brownfield Rainforest Set Up By The Community
If you you’re a fan of huge, disused tracts of concrete, then get ready to feel sad.
Because here come the Waterworks…
And just to expand on that a little, here come The East London Waterworks, a new park that’s set to take the place of an old, disused fenced-in cement-grey depot slapped right in the middle of a large swathe of green space between Leyton & Clapton. It’ll be a tragic loss for lovers of bleak, dystopian sprawl, but a win for people who generally enjoy health, happiness, and greenery. Swings and roundabouts, really.
So what are these grand plans? Well, the space itself is actually quite huge. It’s 5.68 hectares in total. And in case that doesn’t really help you visualise that, it’s the area covered by the Great Pyramid of Giza. So it’s not tiny. They want to turn that into a ‘brownfield rainforest’ which is a seemingly made-up term that apparently involves a swimming area, a couple of wildflower meadows, and some shrubland. There’s even going to be an area labelled ‘wait and see’, in which the concrete will be left for nature to reclaim it in her own way.
The ‘they’ in all of this, by the way, isn’t the council or a charity or anything – it’s literally just a bunch of local people. They’re financing the entire thing through crowdfunding, and they’re remarkably close to their goal of £600k.
They just need a little more green.
NOTE: The East London Waterworks is currently crowdfunding their goal of £600k, and they’re extremely close. If you want to add to the pot, then check out the funding page here, and if you want to find out more about the project, then head to their website here.
East london Waterworks | Lea Bridge Road, Waltham Forest, E5 9RH
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