Frontside Gardens. Pic: Andy Willis

The deserted Hackney Wick site on Rothbury Road has been rejuvenated and turned into a skatepark community project.

Andrew Willis, winner of the ‘Meanwhile London Competition’, has created there one of the largest and longest running skateboarding installations in the United Kingdom.

The competition was organized by the London Development Corporation and aimed to find ‘meanwhile uses’ for development sites that have stalled because of the post-Olympics recession.

Frontside Gardens now features in the latest Google advertisement, which tells the story of how Andrew built the park using recycled and reclaimed materials from local companies and leftover items from Olympic sites.

The story, titled ‘I had no budget and four weeks to build a skatepark,’ attracted a great amount of attention, with hundreds of people manifesting their support and appraisal for Andrew’s achievement.

In order to create Frontside Gardens, Andrew Willis relied on the help of local volunteers.

Frontside Gardens. Pic: Maksim Kelanep

Eleanor Fawcett, Head of Design at the London Legacy Development Corporation, said: “Frontside Gardens is an excellent example of how you can bring derelict land back into public use with a bit of imagination.

“It provides a model for how we might use other unused spaces while they are awaiting redevelopment and is part of our wider aims to help connect the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park to its surrounding area”.

Find more about Frontside Gardens here.