The Dutch studio that designed the Mound, MVRDV has responded saying that we need to give the grasses and planting time to grow. The flat grass is not the undulating mounds we expected. Rudimentary scaffolding stairs lead to the top, where an upturned shipping container box conceals a lift for those not wanting to walk.Ī lot of the commentary has been about how the Marble Arch Mound doesn’t look anything like the CGI impressions that were shared earlier this year, and frankly, it really doesn’t look like them at all.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/69674763/Britain_Marble_Arch_Mound.0.jpg "marble arch mound")
A handful of trees poke out of large holes looking not unlike rockets launching into space from underground bunkers. What was promised to be a richly verdant woodland hill that people could climb up has ended up looking like someone raided the local greengrocer for some sheets of fake grass and piled them up on some boxes. Inflation is on the rise, thousands are languishing on the social housing waiting list, the median property price is over £1m, vital public services have been cut to the bone and the council has announced a 3.5% hike in council tax.A large mound has appeared at Marble Arch and provoked an almost universal emotion of mockery. Many residents face a cost of living crisis.
Marble arch mound free#
Westminster has the highest levels of rough sleeping in the UK and a third of children rely on free school meals in my local area. The city may be known for its palaces, affluence and ostentatious wealth, but it is riven with inequality, which makes the decision to waste millions on the Mound all the more egregious. Westminster’s residents cannot afford the Conservatives’ incompetence. Until that inquiry takes place, and lessons are learnt, the council should suspend any further major capital investments in the West End district. Labour is calling for the Mound to be dismantled as soon as practicably possible and for an independent inquiry to establish how this fiasco was allowed to occur. £6.6m could have been better spent on building 20 new homes, installing solar panels on 500 blocks of flats, providing 20,000 laptops to students or filling in 120,000 potholes. It will cost Westminster’s taxpayers £6.6m – that’s more than the £2m originally budgeted for, and more than the £5m the council has committed to tackling the climate emergency. Intended to be part of a wider £150m redevelopment of Oxford Street, it has attracted international media coverage, forced the resignation of the council’s deputy leader and decimated trust in the Conservatives’ ability to oversee other infrastructure projects.
Subsequently, recognising that the public’s appetite for paying to climb a mound of dirt remains unchanged, the council has made entrance free until January, when the Mound will be removed.
The Conservative-led council refunded those who had purchased tickets to visit the attraction and made entrance free for the month of August. Bearing close resemblance to the Tubbytronic Superdome (the home of the Teletubbies), the Mound was forced to close within two days of opening to undergo remedial work after a public backlash. Insofar as any heap of mud can have aesthetic value, the Mound is particularly bad. The Mound, which promised a “unique immersive experience” with “360-degrees views down Oxford Street and into Hyde Park”, failed to deliver either and has been widely condemned as a failed – and very expensive – vanity project. Westminster City Council was recently plunged into controversy following the disastrous opening of the Marble Arch Mound, a 25-metre-tall artificial hillock designed to encourage visitors back to the West End.
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