Phoenix Park | Be First

Background
The Gascoigne Neighbourhood is undergoing a £350m transformation, which will include the delivery of hundreds of new affordable homes for local residents living in Barking and Dagenham, alongside a new public square and community centre.

As part of a wider masterplan, the nearby play area on Hardwicke Street was temporarily closed for refurbishment, leaving little by the way of local recreation space for the residents and community to make use of.

Home to one of the youngest populations in London, with more under 16 year olds than anywhere else in the UK - almost a third of all children live in poverty and unemployment is higher than average.

Be First, the regeneration and development arm of the local council, identified an area that could be demolished and transformed into a temporary park for the neighbourhood’s children and community to enjoy.

The site was previously a row of dilapidated, empty houses that were attracting antisocial behaviour. The homes were demolished and a group of volunteers repurposed the area into what is now Phoenix Park – a thriving hub and where hundreds of residents and members of the community have been able to gather and enjoy events from planting and harvesting to Easter Eggstravaganza and Iftar celebrations.

As well as drawing on a range of contractors and suppliers to bring the project to life, the majority of the materials used – around 75% - were reclaimed, saving at least 150 tonnes of waste and 10,000 kg of CO2 emissions.

It is an inspiring example of social and environmental sustainability in action

Vision and impact
As well as providing much-needed space for the local community to gather and participate in events together, the project was based on the overarching principles:

• Co-creation with the residents and local community, ensuring a diverse representation of voices that represented the demographics on the people living and using the space.
   
• Embedding the principles of the circular economy to ensure the impact on the environment was minimised as much as possible.
   
• Stewardship by the local community.

Collaboration
We worked closely with the new residents forum to ensure they were fully involved in and led the design process for the creation of the new park alongside a range of project partners. Using a combination of tools, from interviews to digital postcards and online games, we kept residents engaged and the forum created an list of items they wanted to be included in Phoenix Park.

Built by a mix of residents, local authority representatives, and Be First volunteers, the park was backed by local suppliers and the contractor’s supply chain donated hundreds of hours, too.

This was a great example of Wates using their social value contributions more creatively by collaborating on this project with Be First to enable its success.

Protecting the environment
Joists, scaffold poles, pallets and bathtubs were all rescued from the nearby demolition works and re-purposed as planters, decking, tables, benches, and play features in the new park. This works out at savings roughly the equivalent of 50,000 km in petrol car journeys – or, to put in another way, 250 trips between Barking and Birmingham!

The materials used to construct Phoenix Park will also be recycled at the end of the park’s lifespan.

This project is an excellent example of minimising waste and protecting the environment while creating something for the whole community to enjoy.

Community stewardship
A sense of community ownership and responsibility was established right from the beginning and  there are weekends dedicated to painting, planting, activity planning, and schedules for maintenance – a far cry from the area’s previous use.

The process fostered a harmonious working relationship between the forum, landscape architects, main contractor, maintenance team, and the client-developer, enabling them to collaborate and create a place that creatively and flexibly meets a wide range of needs in the local community, such as a play area; space for outdoor recreation and arranging events, which have been attended by hundreds of members of the community.

To encourage residents to use the space for community events, Be First ensured that a stage was implemented in the centre of the park to allow speakers and organisers to choreograph set-piece events.

It is also a place for people to exercise, as well as an area for planting and gardening – all of which are known to have a positive impact on mental health and emotional wellbeing.

Since its launch, residents have organised litter picking sessions to positively reinforce the actions that they want to see in both the park and the local area in direct contrast to the previous use and in a sense of community ownership and responsibility.

Good to know
The project partners spent time conducting a recruitment exercise – making sure that demographic data was used to match the eventual representatives on the forum to ensure fair and accurate representation of the local neighbourhood.

The team even went so far as conducting one-to-one calls with potential applicants to make sure the participants were the right fit. It also meant finding a chair for the forum that could bring in the quieter residents and ensure they also had a voice.

Having a strong focus on sustainability meant the project was dependent on the materials available through the nearby demolition works – and this wasn’t information that was available to the project team at the beginning so meant the vision of the park evolved over time.