Leabank Square Riverbank Wall

WOW!!

Have you seen how beautiful the Gainsborough School wall in Leabank Square looks now that it's been painted?

It has been done in Leabank Square Purples, and looks like a fantastic mosaic from a distance. The plants that are going to be growing up it are in the Leabank Square Riverside Nursery at the moment - and as soon they are big enough - will be trained up this stunning wall!

Thanks to everyone who helped paint it - it looks absolutely brilliant!!

Noisy Bank Holiday Awakening!!

Right - so now that the Olympic workers are starting to consider their neighbours well-being - the next bunch of noisy workers come along!!

Thanks to all the residents who alerted me to this bunch of very inconsiderate strimmerers at work early this Bank Holiday Monday!! The engines on their strimmers were worse than the joy riders bikes that come along the tow path - but then when they started cutting down our flowers - the noise was even worse!!

But - to all the residents who were swearing blue murder over at them (not that they heard!) - these inconsiderate nincompoops were probably either Hackney Council or British Waterways workers. The tow path has nothing to do with the Olympics.

Thanks for logging all the calls to Hackney Council this morning - it's weird isn't it - they will tell you that it has already been reported many times if you're the tenth caller complaining.

Anyhow - I will raise this with Robert Kavuma at our next meeting. But please stop hurling abuse over at them like this morning - it doesn't serve our cause any good!

Grrrrl Power on the Riverbank!

If you pay a visit up to the Leabank Square Riverbank nowadays - you will be absolutely amazed by all the very hard work going on!

But by far - most of the work is being done by the most incredible girls ever!! Potting, seeding, weeding, watering, digging and growing - and it is all starting to look fabulous!! In a few weeks we will have most of the hardest work done - and in these lovely summer temperatures - the plants will be growing much faster!

Thank you to Nancy & Safiri for all their hard work today!

Bugs of Leabank Square - Stag Beetle

Guess what Nadira found up on the riverbank today?! Our very first Stag Beetle!!!

I KNOW!!!

This is a slightly smaller female Stag Beetle - and was found among the newly planted seedlings - and we've now housed her in the newly made Leabank Square Insect Hotel.

The English name is derived from the large and distinctive mandibles found on the males of most species, which resemble the antlers of stags.

A well-known species in much of Europe is Lucanus cervus, referred to in Britain as "the" stag beetle (it is the largest British terrestrial insect). Pliny the Elder noted that Nigidius called the stag beetle lucanus after the Italian region of Lucania where they were used as amulets. The scientific name of Lucanus cervus is this word, plus cervus, deer.

Male stag beetles use their jaws to wrestle each other for favoured mating sites, but despite their often fearsome appearance they are not normally aggressive to humans.

Stag beetles or Kuwagatamushi (クワガタムシ) are sometimes used in the Asian sport of insect fighting.

Female stag beetles are usually smaller than the males, with smaller mandibles.

The larvae feed for several years on rotting wood, growing into grubs which in larger species may be the size of a human finger.

Come on Leabank Square - get there and hunt for more great bugs!

Birds of Leabank Square - Blue Tit

Because the Olympic Developers cut our entire Orchard down - we've managed to start building some replacement trees along our riverbank - and we are beginning to attract some birds back. So far we've seen sparrows, great tits, wrens, dunnocks, robins & starlings returning.

But now we are getting regular visits from a lovely group of blue tits!!!!!

They are feeding on the peanut balls we've hung from the pretend trees - and are now venturing up to our balcony feeders as well. Please could as many of us as possible start hanging some from both sides of our homes - it takes a few weeks for the birds to drum up enough courage to come & snack - but once they do - they're such a welcome visitor!!

It's the colourful mix of blue, yellow, white and green that make the blue tit one of the most attractive resident garden birds. Almost any garden with a peanut feeder will attract them and they readily breed in nest boxes. In winter they form flocks with other tit species and a garden with four or five at a bird table at any one time, may be feeding 20 or more.

Their orchard may have been chopped down - but we can still encourage them to stay with just a little bit of encouragement.

Leabank Square Extremely Disappointed with Olympic Architects!!

Take a look at the picture above - you are going to be so sick of looking at it for the next couple of decades!!!

This is the best the Olympics could come up with as part of OUR legacy!!!!!

This is the reward we have been given for giving them OUR beloved green lung - Arena Fields!!!!

Thanks to everyone who has sent me comments, emails, letters, had chats in the gardens, etc! There is not a single resident of Arena Fields (nor Wick Village next door!!) who likes the design for the International Broadcast Centre & Main Press Centre!

Again - Hackney Wick has been dumped on by the Olympic Delivery Authority! We have always been seen as the poorest neighbour of the whole Olympic Park - and their attitude is that we should be grateful for anything we get.

Well - we had a perfectly beautiful green park in Arena Fields directly opposite us - and now we have two massive blocks of steel & glass instead. My children's lego creations have more imagination, beauty & practical use - than what Hackney Wick is going to get as a legacy!

I was at a meeting last week where a suit from the Olympics was telling us that the buildings 'will come alive' when the cladding is put on. Putting all your suggestions about living walls to him - he nearly passed out! Leabank Square - he's 'not sure' about living walls - but how about a nice greeny/greyee dappled metal finish?!

So - they took away Arena Fields - with our orchard & trees - and gave given us two massive glass & steel blocks - and won't even consider cladding them in beautiful green, living, growing plants?!

Some legacy!!!

Even CABE (the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment - who advise on well-designed buildings, places and spaces) said that:

"The architecture as shown is extremely weak, lacking real conviction as to how it could work in Transition and Legacy, and in the case of the IBC revealing a paucity of imagination and analysis which we find deeply disappointing.

In relation to specific buildings on the site, our greatest concern is the extraordinary banality of the IBC ‘mega structure’. In our view, it is simply not good enough as currently proposed. We would go so far as to say that its continued presence would blight rather than enhance the Olympic Legacy. We believe that a fundamental rethink needs to be undertaken in respect of the external appearance of this building. Otherwise the public might well ask why this sort of building, which has been removed from the Lower Lee Valley in order to create a vibrant new future, is being reinstated at a larger scale." (http://www.cabe.org.uk/design-review/ibc-mpc)

And guess who the Olympic Delivery Authority need to submit the plans to in order to get permission to carry this architectural monstrosity forward? Themselves!

That's right Leabank Square! The Olympics give themselves permission to build anything they want on our Arena Fields!

Hackney Council has no say. Boris Johnson has no say. Meg Hillier has no say (not that she ever does!). Gordon Brown has no say.

The Olympics decide what is best for us oiks across the canal to stare at for the next 50 years. And the picture above is the best they've come up with!

Leabank Square Festival Meeting 2009

Hackney Wick Festival 2009

Leabank Square Meeting

Public meeting to discuss how Leabank Square can be involved in this year’s Festival programme.

Please come along to share your ideas and find out how to get involved.

6.30pm
Thursday 30th April

Hackney Wick Community Centre
The Old Baths, 80 Eastway, E9 5LR

Tea and Coffee provided

All welcome

For more info please call Niki 07834714765 or 07957166512

Leabank Square Ideas for World Envionment Day

As we all know - the 5th June each year - is World Environment Day!

This year the Olympic people are going to help us celebrate it by supporting a few projects we may want to do in Leabank Square!!

We need as many ideas as possible to put forward to them (mainly Carrillion Construction Company) to consider. The theme is as broad as the environment. If we want them to help out in the gardens, make use of some of their people & machines, donate items we think would reduce our carbon footprints, create a safari park on our green - all we have to do is ask!

Of course, they might not immediately start importing herds of elephants for Leabank Square - but they are willing to consider anything we might propose!

So........... Leabank Square - please get your thinking caps on - and come up with some brilliant ideas for us to celebrate World Evironment Day this year!!

Competition to Design Artwork for Arena Fields Olympic Portakabins!!

Our mates over the canal have come up with a super way of making our view of the Arena Fields Olympic Welfare Centre a bit better!

They are going to have a competition to see which talented junior artists will design the artwork to go onto the sides facing Leabank Square!

Leabank Square - please get as many of our children along to the Hackney Wick Community Centre (Old Baths in the Eastway) - as soon as they give us a date.

They are going to host an art workshop for the kids to get their creative juices flowing. We need as many amazing designs as possible to be considered for the competition.

The winners will have the privilege of seeing their art super-imposed onto giant meshes - and hung in front of the welfare centre for a long time for the rest of us to admire!!