Features

The Plans

These man-made islands would be made up out of London’s waste. The islands would then continue to take the capital’s waste, to produce power and recycle materials.

The result of the islands would be to create an area which is the 'world's first truly sustainable eco-region'. 

Sir Terry Farrell

The Aims

Sir Terry Farrell and building engineer, Guy Battle, agree that the main aims of the islands would be to:

• Enhance the environment and to help reinvigorate the area’s depressed historic towns and villages.
• Allow other areas to flood, which would create salt marshes and fisheries to replenish North Sea stocks.
• Link the islands with a bridge that would help to create a special economic zone dedicated to environmental business in Kent and Essex.
• Attract tourists as the islands could become a major recreational resource which would in turn attract large numbers of visitors.
• Create ‘jobs of the future’ according to Farrell. These would be occupations based upon the environmental industries that would be based in the Gateway.
• Produce a park which would ‘become a productive landscape that would provide a space for leisure – a place to breathe that actively benefits the communities along its banks’, according to Battle.

But will they really work?

Sir Terry Farrell offers a very valid point – with all the proposed building on brownfield land, will these new towns actually be attractive to people who are looking for a place to live? He believes that ‘greening the gateway’ and making the area a pleasant and environmentally friendly place to be is just as important as meeting housing targets. 

However, it is still uncertain whether or not building these islands made out of our capital’s waste will actually come to light. But one thing is for sure: Farrell is a man determined to make his 'national park of the future' become real.