I've always loved Footpath 47, the desolate estuarine footpath at Barking Riverside. In good news it's still there and ten thousand flats haven't yet encroached close enough to wreck it. But that day draws closer, and a couple of recent changes are a hint that local developers are starting to include it in their placemaking remit. For a start the path's been extended 200m west along the waterfront to link up with the pier, so there's now more than one way out. The new link's hemmed in and emblazoned with safety notices, not open to the river, but along the way you can peer through the mesh and see the Stockpile Garden, an eco-friendly soil restoration project being overseen by UCL's Department of Bio-Chemical Engineering. And then there's the nature trail.
Four sculptural information points have been created using reclaimed materials, each themed around a different animal. 'Bird' has been plonked on the pierhead, and if you keep walking east into the desolate bit you eventually reach Dragonfly (pictured), Seal and Snake. They're intriguing, they're informative, and a couple of them come with associated audioscapes (Mud and Marsh) linked by QR code. But it's still a bit of a jolt to find something commercially-produced amid the nothingness, as the developers of Barking Riverside make their first landgrab for the tidal periphery.
Footpath 47 has also been rebranded as the 'Wildlife & Wellbeing Trail', part of a 3 mile circuit to encourage new residents in their hutchlike stacks to go out walking or jogging. There are only two other sculptures, both on the far side of the development near the coffee shop and sales suite, specifically amid a small wetland park. That's all well and good, but to link things up they've had to direct the trail along a godforsaken pylon-infested access road and through a sanitised canyon of flats. It means the majority of the 'Wildlife & Wellbeing Trail' offers neither wildlife nor wellbeing, but needs must when there's a loop to connect and a placemaking concept to deliver.
