Riverside park destruction

King Stairs Gardens (also known locally as Park 2000), one of the last remaining riverside parks (to the north of Southwark Park, between Jamaica Road and the river), has been earmarked to be one of the major sites for the Thames Water Super Sewer. This will mean that the park will be bulldozed, including the much-loved 'hill', many mature trees and a well loved children's playground. The local community will be subject to at least seven years of misery, with sludge, dust, pollution and smells whilst a 30 metre wide hole is created. Once the construction is complete a 3 storey high maintenance building, 5 storey high sewage vent (TW cannot guarantee that there will not be a loss of air quality / smells from this vent) will remain and a significant section of the park will be concreted over. The park will basically be industrialised. It is outrageous that a public green space, children's playground and the Thames path, in a densely populated residential area can be considered for this purpose when there are alternative brownfield sites. Please help with the campaign to get Thames Water to find a more suitable site for these works by signing the petition at http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/save-king-stairs-gardens.html and passing this information on to your family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances. Facebook page can be found here http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/group.php?gid=120568491331332.

More details of Thames Water's plans at:

Kings Stairs Gardens site proposals


There is an unanswered question whether the scale of works at Kings Stairs would be as great if the scheme was still following the original longer (and more expensive?) route all the way under the Thames to Beckton rather than cutting off at Rotherhithe to follow the line of the Limehouse Cut to abbey Mills.

Also don't forget that they have a site at Druid Street in their sights as well:

Plans for St John's Playground at Druid Street:

DePRESSSSSSING!

In answer to Lang Rabbie's post, Thames Water has said that if they used the longer River Thames route for their tunnel, their preferred tunnel shaft would NOT be King's Stairs Gardens but the large, semi-derelict, brownfield industrial site at Convoys Wharf - a much more suitable alternative.

But an even stronger argument is that, by TW's own admission, the River Thames route would capture MORE sewage than the cheaper Abbey Mills route. It seems daft to make such a massive long-term investment and then not choose the most effective solution to the problem. Of course, we customers of Thames Water who will be paying for the project out of our water bills will be inclined to say let's go for the cheapest option. But that would be a false economy. By 2020 when the project is due to complete, no doubt the EU's regulations will be more stringent, the sewage overflow problem will be more acute, and Thames Water will say "now we've got to do it all over again". They're being really shortsighted as well as lazily going for what they think is the easy option.

Perhaps we could consolidate discussion of the Thames Tunnel in the other ongoing thread?