Environment Agency hails completion of its work with the Olympic Delivery Authority to create new urban park

The work to complete many of the environmental improvements at the Olympic park and secure a green post-Games legacy is now complete, the Environment Agency has announced.

The Environment Agency said that over the last eight years it had worked with the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) and other partners to transform the area into the largest urban park created in Europe for more than 100 years.

Lord Chris Smith, Environment Agency chairman, said that work had seen the restoration of around 2.5 km² of land, much of it polluted, which was the equivalent of 297 football pitches.

He said: “The Olympic park has shown the way in securing major environmental improvement at the same time as enabling large-scale construction and development.

“This is a great example of how development and sustainability can go hand in hand, and I hope the same approach can be taken for other large infrastructure projects in the future.”

Sir John Armitt, ODA chairman, said: “To have created Britain’s largest urban park for over a century out of a contaminated, industrial landscape has taken both determination and clever thinking.”