PLA Consultation on Goals and Priority Actions

The Thames  is a long forgotten water highway cutting through the heart of London, and its time has come again as this year will be a critical one for it.

Firstly we have the start of the Thames Tideway tunnel  by Thames Water to improve London’s sewage which haven’t been touched for over 150 years going underneath the Thames and then numerous bridge proposals going across the Thames who’s fate will no doubt be sealed probably this year. This on top of its increasing contribution to transportation of commuters via clippers and building materials and waste by water freight, helping take lorries off the road, cut congestion and using less carbon than the HGV equivalent. So the Port of London’s public consultation on their vision for the Thames up to 2035, is very appropriately timed at the beginning of 2016 and will no doubt attract a lot of attention.

This is a long way from when London turned its back to the River Thames, typified by buildings like Southwark Crown Court, built in the 1980’s with its back to the Thames. Today such a proposal along the Thames riverside would be totally unacceptable and rightly so.