Welcome from Matt Carpen

Hello, and welcome to our final stakeholder newsletter of 2022—and what a year it has been! It has been one of the busiest to date for Barking Riverside, with more events taking place over the past 12 months than any years before, successes in a number of hugely prestigious awards, ongoing community projects and, most significantly, the opening of the station and riverboat service.

At the start of this month, Barking Riverside hosted its biggest ever event—Emerge East—a brand new festival to celebrate the opening of Station Square. Nearly 1800 Londoners joined us for a jam-packed line-up of activities, including an outdoor sauna, an independent Makers’ Market, a series of craft workshops, nature walks, Indeedy Musical Bingo, performances from an East London DJ collective, a street food and cocktails area, plus much more.

Elsewhere, our Resident Events Panel has gone from strength to strength, organising three community events this year. To find out more about what it has been like being a panel member, we spoke to two residents, Ruxandra and Fam. Read on to hear more about their experience.

As you will have seen in my previous updates, it has been a hugely successful year for Barking Riverside for industry awards. We have been delighted to win six highly prestigious awards—from The Wilds winning the Community Benefit category at the Regional and then the overall National RICS UK Awards in October, to our first brand campaign of the year winning the Property Marketing Awards in June.

On a personal level, one particular highlight for me has been Riverside School securing an ‘Outstanding’ Ofsted rating. This is a huge achievement and testament to the exceptional hard- working spirit of staff and pupils here at Riverside School. Congratulations to Headteacher Andy Roberts, his team and all the pupils, volunteers and parents who make the school such a brilliant place of learning.

Finally, I am pleased to announce that we have promoted Qiao Zhang and Nathan Pearce to Head of Infrastructure (Strategic Projects) and Head of Infrastructure (Core Projects and Operations) respectively. In addition, we have welcomed Paul Roberts to the team as our new Head of New Business and Innovation and Sarah Phillips as Head of Estates. These are hugely important appointments to the team, and I am sure you will all join me in wishing them luck in their new roles.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our partners, colleagues and friends for their continued support throughout 2022. Wishing you all a restful Christmas break, and a Happy New Year. We look forward to welcoming you to Barking Riverside in 2023.