Art club children draw on Tideway site for inspiration

Children from LEMON Art club swapped learning about art for construction during a visit to the King Edward Memorial Park site on the Tideway project. 

The site team took 30 seven to eleven-year olds from the LEMON Art Lab Summer day camp based in Tower Hamlets on a tour of the site on the eastern section of the project where Tideway are linking with existing sewers and constructing a shaft for the main tunnel.

The event was organised through the site's project manager after his own son attended the day camp whilst he was at work on the site.

The group met staff on the nearby foreshore to hear about the river and how the Tideway project is cleaning up the Thames for future generations, followed by a spot of mudlarking on a glorious day.

After a picnic lunch in the park the group visited the site itself, hearing about the importance of safety and spotting both machinery on site and characters from ‘Finding Nemo’ to encourage the children to look around.

The children also took part in an ‘engineering’ themed activity in the park to design and construct the tallest newspaper tower whilst working together in teams.

Site manager, Dominic Lovelock, said: 'The children were very interested in the project and had fun trying to spot the machines and the characters, one of which was hidden on the site foreman’s safety helmet.'

June Saunders, Community Relations Officer, added: 'It’s important that children understand that they should never go unsupervised onto construction sites. The fun day was a good way to communicate that message and also enabled us to help the children learn more about our industry and the Tideway project”.

James Kelly, site foreman, continued: 'My team really enjoyed having the children on site; they understood the safety messages and really enjoyed wearing the hi-vis vests.'

Susana Cortes from the LEMON Art Lab added: "We all appreciate the effort the site team put into this to make it work. Thank you to all the staff involved."