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The Vauxhall Missing Link declared open

The first phase of the Vauxhall Missing Link, sitting alongside the Hugo Bugg garden on Vauxhall Walk SE11, was officially opened today by Cllr Lib Peck

Opening party for The Missing Link, Vauxhall

Published on
May 15, 2015

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Cllr Lib Peck, Co-Chair of the Nine Elms Vauxhall Partnership and Leader of Lambeth Council, today cut the ribbon to declare the Vauxhall Missing Link open.

Cllr Peck was accompanied by Ben Plowden, Director of Surface Strategy and Planning at TfL, who sponsored the Missing Link Rain Gardens project, as well as Royal Bank of Canada CEO, Dave Thomas, who sponsored the neighbouring RBC Waterscape Garden by Hugo Bugg.  The garden relocated to Vauxhall from Chelsea Flower Show in autumn 2014, after being awarded the youngest ever gold medal for a main show garden.

Ben Plowden said:  “We are delighted to have worked with Lambeth Council and Vauxhall One on this fantastic project which will transform this part of Vauxhall. This is part of our commitment to invest in and improving cycling and walking routes, as well as projects that help transform London’s public spaces and improve air quality.”

In 2013 Vauxhall One, The Business Improvement District for Vauxhall, ran an Urban Design Competition with RIBA and the Landscape Institute for sustainable ways to improve the public realm and connectivity in the Lambeth portion of Nine Elms on the South Bank.

The competition gained a staggering 200 entries from 21 different countries all over the world. Erect Architecture with J&L Gibbons Landscape Architects were chosen as the unanimous winners for their outstanding entry ‘The Vauxhall Promenade of Curiosities’, which proposes a sustainable Green Trail connecting Vauxhall’s parks and new developments to the South Bank using a planted walkway.

As part of TfL and The Mayor’s Pocket Park programme, both these schemes use an ingenious SUDs scheme that reduces the risk of flooding by taking rainwater from the street drains and re-directing it into lovely planted rain gardens.

The Missing Link Rain Gardens on Vauxhall Walk, London SE11 5HL and the RBC Waterscape Garden were respectively planted & transplanted by the Horticultural Apprentices of the award-winning, not-for-profit organisation Streetscape, who trains unemployed Lambeth young-people back into full time employment.


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