The area around Olympic Park is mostly park, so for once a place name tells the truth. Green space is about a minute's walk from most front doors. Water is close as well. The local high street has plenty of shops and very little to drink in. It is an excellent area to step outside in and a hard one to find a pint in.
Natural England's green space mapping puts the nearest green space about 53 metres from the average home, with around 45 green spaces within a kilometre. Most people here can be on grass before the kettle boils.
Water is about 200 metres away on average, and there are around 136 bits of river, canal and other water within a kilometre. The Lea runs through the middle of it, with canals off it, so most walks here pass water at some point.
The National Cycle Network is about 850 metres from the average home, and about 10% of postcodes are close to it. Few people here live right beside a signed route. For most, the ride to one runs through the park.
The rated-premises data lists 249 shops, 34 restaurants and cafés and 50 offices, and exactly one pub. The area was planned on the assumption that visitors would come, shop and go home again, and its one pub has the drinking side of things to itself.
Newham's fine-particle pollution averaged about 10 micrograms per cubic metre in 2024, and that figure covers the whole borough.
The park's sporting venues give the area its shape: the London Stadium, the Aquatics Centre, the Copper Box and the Velopark, with the ArcelorMittal Orbit above them, in red, sometimes catching the light. The planting was designed by Nigel Dunnett and James Hitchmough of the University of Sheffield with the garden designer Sarah Price, and their meadows are why so much of the long grass looks planned. A little further out are Hackney Marsh, Leyton Marshes and Wanstead Flats, and Temple Mills is to the north-east. Whichever direction a walk takes, most of it is through open space of one kind or another.
Private outdoor space is scarce. The Office for National Statistics' garden figures give about 6,900 square metres of private garden for every 1,000 residents, in an area where almost every home is a flat. For most people here a garden means a balcony or a shared courtyard, so look for a balcony on the floor plan. A plot of grass of your own is very unusual here.
The valuation list has 530 rateable premises across the area. Most are shops, followed by offices, restaurants and cafés. These are premises on the rating list, and some of them will be empty units.
Of the 189 food businesses inspected, about 73% hold the top hygiene score and about 3% are rated poor. Most of the kitchens are new, and so far it shows.
Natural England records no area of outstanding natural beauty, no site of special scientific interest and no ancient woodland here. The landscape here was designed and planted in the twenty-first century.
The surroundings are the best thing about Olympic Park. Hardly anywhere in London puts this much grass and water this close to this many front doors.