Biodiversity site tour - Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park
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Site tour of Olympic Park, Stratford, to consider the maintenance and monitoring of on-site biodiversity initiatives to ensure long term biodiversity benefits.
Ticket information:
This event is free for CIRIA Core, Associate and Network members.
This event costs £75 + VAT for non members.
Attendance at this event will be prioritised for CIRIA Core, Associate and Network members. Please note that there are a limited amount of places available.
If
you are interested in attending, please email [email protected]
When?
Thursday 11 September, 13.15 - 16.30 (lunch & registration from 12.30)
Background:
The Olympic Park Biodiversity Action Plan was a planning requirement and established the biodiversity targets for the Olympic Park including the requirement to create 45 hectares of new habitat, including 20 ha of species rich grasslands to replace the loss of previously designated sites of natural conservation importance on the Park, as well as action plans for 28 species or species groups. The requirement to monitor and report regularly on their status was key to driving performance targets and assuring confidence.
This site tour will revisit the overall vision for the Biodiversity Action Plan, subsequent management plan and the work undertaken in the transformation stage to ensure long term biodiversity targets were achieved. The site visit will consider the lessons learnt, setting standards and incorporating these into future developments planning.
- Overview of original biodiversity targets – successes and lessons learnt
- Monitoring of developments and how this is achieved
- Integration of ecology and biodiversity into long term management and maintenance phases of the project including specific biodiversity targets
- Management and maintenance of species rich grassland during transformation stage of Olympic Park (specific case study to be discussed by James Hewetson-Brown, Wildflower Turf Ltd)
Who should attend?
Engineers, contractors, clients, ecologists, urban designers, planners, architects, and all professionals working with the built environment.
CPD
This event has a value of 3 hours towards your CPD (As recognised by ICE, CIOB, RICS, CIBSE, IstructE and others)
Programme
12.30 - 13.15 Lunch & registration,
Location - Viewtube, The Greenway
13.15 - 14.00 Short presentations
- Dr Phil Askew, Project Leader Parklands & Public Realm Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park
- Dr Peter Shepherd, BSG Ecology
- James Hewetson-Brown, Wildflowerturf Ltd.
14.00 - 16.30 Walking tour of Olympic village & athletes village
Where?
Meeting point: The Viewtube, The Greenway, Marshgate Lane, London, E15 2PJ
Site visit leaders:
Dr Peter Shepherd is an ecologist with over 20 years’ professional and research experience and partner at BSG Ecology.
Between 2008 and 2012 BSG Ecology was retained as the ecological
advisor to the design team of LDA Design-Hargreaves who prepared the
designs for the Parkland and Public Realm areas of the Olympic Park in
East London.
Dr Phil Askew is Project Leader of Parklands & Public Realm at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
Since 2008 he has worked on the Olympic Park, originally at the Olympic
Delivery Authority (ODA) leading the delivery of the 2012 Olympic Park
and now at the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) leading the
Transformation of the Olympic Park into the largest new urban park in
the UK for over a century.
James Hewetson-Brown is the MD of Wildflower Turf Ltd.
Wildflower Turf Ltd developed a range of biodiverse turfs for the
Athletes Village and the 2012 Olympic Games. These included a shade
tolerant, marsh, and woodland Wildflower Turf as well as a species rich
lawn turf. James Hewetson-Brown worked with the site’s ecologists and
landscape designers before and after the games to provide a long term
solution for the project and its Biodiversity Action Plan. In 2013 the
company supplied over 50,000m² of bespoke Wildflower Turf for the
transformation of the Olympic Park.