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Facts and figures

The Park in numbers

 

  • We have had more than 16 million visits to the Park to date.
  • The Park covers 560 acres, has 6.5km of waterways, 30 acres of woods, hedgerow and wildlife habitat and 4,300 new trees.
  • There are four free themed walking trails to explore – London 2012, Biodiversity, Art in the Park and Kids’ activity.
  • There are 525 bird boxes and 150 bat boxes at the Park.
  • There are 26 permanent artworks in the Park and 2.5km of temporary artworks on hoardings.
  • All eight permanent venues have a secure legacy – ArcelorMittal Orbit, Copper Box Arena, East Village, Here East, Lee Valley Hockey and Tennis Centre, Lee Valley VeloPark, London Aquatics Centre and London Stadium.
  • More than 5,000 people (30 per cent from the local area) worked on the Park during its transformation – including 60 apprentices.
  • It is expected that there will be 40,000 jobs created on the Park by 2025; 5,300 at Here East, 4,000 from employment space, schools and retail, 2,000 in construction and 3,000 at Olympicopolis.
  • Planning permission has been granted for over 4,000 homes at the Park.

 

    • The ArcelorMittal Orbit is the tallest sculpture in the UK at 114.5m high, six times taller than the Angel of the North.
    • The sculpture was designed by world-renowned artist Sir Anish Kapoor and structural engineer Cecil Balmond.
    • The upper observation deck is 80m high, and the lower observation deck is 76m high. Visitors can see 20 miles across London on a clear day from these platforms.
    • It takes 34 seconds for the two passenger elevators, each capable of holding 21 people, to take visitors up to the observation decks.
    • The 350m long staircase is made completely from recycled steel and contains 455 steps. It takes about 12 minutes to walk down the staircase which is 1,150ft long. On the walk, visitors can enjoy an immersive soundscape which captures the sounds of London.
    • The sculpture is made from 2,000 tonnes of steel held together with 35,000 bolts. The weight of the steel is equivalent to 1,136 London Black Cabs, and sixty percent is recycled.
    • The ArcelorMittal Orbit is painted with 19,000 litres of red paint, RAL 3003 to be exact. The red colour was chosen by Sir Anish Kapoor as it symbolises luck in some Eastern cultures.
    • The ArcelorMittal Orbit is completely asymmetrical, and every line of it is curved. If stretched as one long rope, the structure would be about 560m long, the same length of five football pitches.
    • In June 2016, The Slide was opened, created by Belgian artist Carsten Holler. 

    • The Copper Box Arena was the first venue to open on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park exactly one year after the London 2012 Games on 27 July 2013. There were 10,000 visitors on the opening weekend alone.
    • The venue has had over 1.5 million visits since opening.
    • The world-class venue is London’s third largest arena and contains 7,500 multi-coloured seats.
    • The venue was used for handball, modern pentathlon and goalball during the Games and was affectionately referred to as ‘the Box that Rocks’.
    • The venue has hosted basketball, badminton, cheerleading, wheelchair rugby, netball, handball, fencing, and major events including the Invictus Games and Sport Relief.
    • It was the site of Mo Farah's Guiness World Record for 100m sack race at the Weetabix Ultimate Sports Day in July 2014.
    • The Copper Box Arena has a state-of-the-art field of play that can host everything from schools sports days and basketball games to boxing matches and netball tournaments.
    • The venue is home to a number of sports teams – London’s only professional basketball team, the London Lions, the London GD Handball Club and Leyton Netball Club.
    • It is used by more than 20 local sports clubs and 20 local schools.
    • Eighty-eight light pipes incorporated in the roof draw natural light into the venue helping to save 40 per cent energy. 
    • The building is clad in responsibly sourced copper which will develop a rich natural colour as it ages. 

     

    • Lee Valley Hockey and Tennis Centre boasts four indoor and six outdoor tennis courts as well as two of the best hockey pitches in the country.
    • The venue, known as Eton Manor during London 2012, was the only purpose-built Paralympic venue for the London 2012 Games and the ITF 3 Paralympic Wheelchair Tennis competition was held there.
    • The venue has had over 465,000 visits since June 2014.
    • There were three 50m temporary training swimming pools for synchronised swimmers and water polo players at the venue during the Games.
    • The venue is owned and run by Lee Valley Regional Park Authority.
    • Three thousand seats from the London 2012 Basketball Arena were reused in the permanent hockey seating. The venue has the potential to increase the seating numbers to 15,000 for major events.
    • The two state-of-the-art hockey pitches have a unique red, white and blue Union Jack design and measure 101m long and 63m wide including the run-off areas.
    • The hockey pitches were rolled out by hand and are made from a water-based artificial turf that is designed to withstand wear and weather, meaning that the colour will remain vibrant for years to come.
    • Four large floodlights each consisting of 40 light bulbs surround the main hockey competition pitch.
    • Building on the success of the London 2012 Paralympic Wheelchair Tennis competition, the Centre has been established as a Regional Centre for Excellence for wheelchair tennis.
    • The four indoor tennis courts have been awarded Two-Star ITF Recognition which demonstrates that they are of a standard demanded by elite level play.

     

    • Lee Valley VeloPark is the first venue in the world to bring together four Olympic cycling disciplines – track cycling, road cycling, BMX and mountain biking.
    • The London 2012 Games velodrome has been adapted for use by the public, and the BMX track has been completely remodelled so that cyclists of all abilities can use it.
    • Two brand new circuits have been created from scratch – a one-mile road circuit and five miles of mountain bike trails.
    • The velodrome now seats almost 6,000 spectators, over 1,000 more than during the Games, has a 250m long track which banks at 42 degrees and is clad in Western red cedar.
    • The venue has had over 2.6 million visits since March 2014.
    • It took 26 carpenters eight weeks to install the Siberian pine track of the velodrome, and more than 300,000 nails were used.
    • TeamGB won seven gold, one silver and one bronze and ParalympicsGB won five gold, seven silver and three bronze in the velodrome.
    • The brand new one-mile floodlit road cycle circuit has been created featuring a series of loops to the west of the velodrome and a large single loop to the east.
    • The road circuit is 6m wide and is engineered to provide a variety of right and left turns, straights, rises and falls along its route.
    • The London 2012 BMX track has been remodelled and floodlit so that riders of all abilities can take on the famous course. It is 390m of bumps, curves and jumps.
    • The BMX start ramp has been cut in size by two-thirds to 3.8m high, still the height of a double-decker bus.
    • There are five miles of brand new mountain biking tracks graded by difficulty so that everyone can take part.
    • Hosted the UCI World Track Cycling Championships in 2016 as well as the Revolution Series and Six Day cycling event.
    • Scene of Sir Bradley Wiggins' successful bid to break the hour distance record in June 2015 (54.526km).
    • The mountain bike trails form a loop which runs from the northeast corner of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, past the velodrome and heads north under the A12 to East Marsh.
    • The venue is owned and run by Lee Valley Regional Park Authority.

     

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    • The London Aquatics Centre opened in 2014 after a period of transformation which included removing the temporary Games seating known as the ‘wings’ bringing the capacity down from 17,500 to 2,500.
    • Since opening, the venue has had over 3.1 million visits.
    • The Centre contains two 50m swimming pools, a 25m diving pool, a dry diving zone, 50 station gym and crèche.
    • The three pools contain 10 million litres of water and are lined with 180,000 tiles.
    • There are almost 600,000 tiles in the whole building, and the new windows where the wings once stood are made up of 628 panes of glass.
    • The spectacular wave-like roof is 45m high, 160m long and 80m wide at its widest point. It rests on just three concrete supports, weighs more than 3,000 tonnes and is covered with 11,715 square metres of aluminium panels.
    • The venue was designed by Zaha Hadid and made the final shortlist for the renowned architectural RIBA Stirling Prize in 2014.
    • The London Aquatics Centre is the second largest venue on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park at over 200m long with a 22,000 metre squared footprint and a volume of approximately 500,000 cubic metres.
    • The structure incorporates a 250m long and 45m wide land bridge that forms a route into Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and the roof of the training pool. The bridge includes 14 steel beams, up to 60 metres long and weighing 75 tonnes each.
    • The venue has staged the FINA Diving World series, British Swimming Championships and European Aquatics Championships in 2016.
    • It is used by over 50 schools and 1,400 school children each week.
    • The venue is home to the Tom Daley Diving Academy.

     

     

    • Work is being undertaken to transform the former Olympic Stadium in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park into a year round multi-use venue that will deliver a lasting sporting, cultural and community legacy in east London.
    • Transformation work includes installing the largest roof of its kind in the world, a community track, innovative retractable seating, spectator and hospitality facilities and external landscaping.
    • The Stadium will reopen temporarily for five matches of the Rugby World Cup in 2015, before opening permanently as the new home of West Ham United Football Club and national competition centre for UK Athletics in 2016.
    • A new floodlit 400m 6-lane (8 on the straights) community athletics track, the London Marathon Charitable Trust Community Track, will be built next to the main Stadium. This will be used by the local community, local and regional athletics clubs and also as a warm-up track for elite events within the Stadium.
    • The Stadium will meet UEFA Category 4 classification and will be a fully compliant IAAF Category 1 athletics facility. It will have 54,000 seats.
    • The new football pitch will be 105m x 68m which is equivalent to Wembley Stadium, the Emirates, the Etihad and Old Trafford.
    • While building work is taking place the running track is protected by a 750mm deep mat of recycled concrete which is designed to support all the transformation activities.
    • 5,000 people will have worked 2 million man hours once the Stadium transformation is complete. The peak workforce is expected to reach 500 workers on site with over 30 apprentices also being recruited from the local area.
    • At around 45,000sq metres and 84m at its deepest point, the new roof will be the longest cantilevered roof in the world covering every seat in the Stadium and improving acoustics and spectator experience.
    • Eight kilometres of cable net weighing around 930 tonnes and ranging in width from 60 to 105 millimetres was lifted and connected over a four week period to create the new roof.
    • There are 5,423 pieces of steel in the roof, weighing 3,900 tonnes.

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