Lower Lea Valley Regeneration and Olympic and Legacy Master Plans

In August 2003, the London Development Agency (LDA) appointed EDAW to lead a multidisciplinary team that included HOK Sport, Foreign Office Architects, and Allies and Morrison. Their task was to prepare visionary regeneration master plans for the Lower Lea Valley that mapped out and facilitated London’s bid for the 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games. The master plans provided the vision needed to transform one of the poorest parts of the United Kingdom. Central to the vision was the “legacy” master plan that detailed what the area would look like after the games.

To put the Olympic site into its wider context and define regeneration across a wider valley area, the LDA, together with the Greater London Authority and local authorities, commissioned a Regeneration Strategy. This set the framework for the Lower Lea Valley to become one of the most significant new development areas in London.

GIS played a fundamental role in understanding and evaluating the physical and nonphysical interventions that will be required to support the new and established communities in the Lower Lea Valley. GIS was used to map out the socioeconomic profile as well as analyze the social infrastructure distribution and accessibility. GIS also played an integral role in the analysis of open space and landscape features.