Hackney Wick

With Hackney Wick hosting almost a third of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the neighbourhood will receive millions of new visitors and will be the focus of a global audience.

Hackney Wick, more than anywhere else in Hackney, is set to benefit most from the Olympic Games. Initiatives are under way to ensure the Olympic legacy offers the best possible future. This includes the development of the Lower Lea Valley into a fully integrated ‘Watercity’ and construction of the International Broadcast Centre and Main Press Centre for the games.

These high specification media complexes will accommodate more than 20,000 journalists during the Games, and afterwards will lead the regeneration of the area. They will be the anchor for unprecedented development and investment changing Hackney Wick and the wider area into a regional hub for new media, digital arts, design and IT sectors. With almost 1 million sq ft of prime inner-city commercial office and studio space, excellent transport connections and idyllic surroundings Hackney Wick looks set to be reborn as a new centre for business and enterprise in East London.

Hackney Council is also working to create a thriving new neighbourhood including affordable new homes, places to eat, shops and business space, alongside indoor sports facilities and green spaces and parks. This will give the area a much needed boost.

At present the neighbourhood has a wealth of potential development sites for manufacturing processes, from small warehouses suitable for printing and smaller scale operations to larger sites suited to large scale manufacturing development. The affordability of commercial space also makes it ideal as a location for the expansion of the creative sector located elsewhere in Hackney and the East End.