1 December 2009
Capita Lovejoy’s Dorney Rowing Lake project at Eton has
won the Arts Sport and Culture category at the RTPI South Eastern
Region Planning Awards 2009.
Capita Lovejoy – the land planning division of Capita Symonds –
was awarded the prize in conjunction with planning and ecology
consultants Hankinson Duckett Associates and ‘Berkshire County
Council’.
The 2.2km long, eight-laned rowing lake was recently named as
the rowing venue for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Situated next to the Thames, near Windsor Castle, the lake is
surrounded by 400 acres of parkland. Capita Lovejoy provided
landscape and visual impact assessment services, as well as
landscape design including construction and impact mitigation
measures, for a planning application leading to a public inquiry in
1993. The second stage of the development provided for a nature
conservation area with grazing meadows, a droveway and wetland
planting.
Four million tonnes of gravel, 1.97m cubic metres of topsoil and
subsoil, and 585,000 cubic metres of basal clay were extracted
during the construction of the main lake and warm-up channel. The
project hosted the FISA World Rowing Championships in 2006.
Over 18 days during the 2012 Games, the lake will host Olympic
Canoe/Kayak (Flatwater), Rowing and Paralympic Rowing events. It
will have capacity for 20,000 seated spectators and a further
10,000 along the bank.
The project has also been chosen to go forward as a finalist for
the RTPI National Awards which will be held at the Hilton Hotel,
Park Lane, London on 4th February 2010.
Find out more about the project
in our case study.
Photo credit: Capita Lovejoy.