Water unlocks low-carbon route to London Olympics

A new lock and restored waterway at Bromley-by-Bow in east London will reduce lorry freight and offer greener transport to the Games

Press Association
guardian.co.uk, Friday 5 June 2009 11.56 BST

The first lock to be built in London for nearly two decades opened today, creating a new low-carbon freight route to the site for the London 2012 Olympic games.
The environment secretary, Hilary Benn, is due today on one of the first boats to travel through Three Mills Lock at Bromley-by-Bow, a restored stretch of waterway which links to the Olympic Park site in east London.
The new lock opens up the Bow Back Rivers, a network of waterways in and around the Olympic Park. This not only creates a green gateway for freight barges to enter the Olympic construction zone but will also be an environmental asset for the new neighbourhoods being planned on the Olympic Park site after the 2012 London Games.
Mr Benn said: "We want the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games to be the greenest games ever. Funding the Three Mills Lock will not only take many lorries off local roads, reducing thousands of tonnes of CO2 and local congestion, it will also provide a green freight route for the redevelopment of east London, and open up the waterways for boaters, walkers, and cyclists."
London Mayor Boris Johnson said: "The revitalisation of this network of canals after decades of decline heralds a new age of water transport in the capital. By shifting noisy, dusty and heavily polluting freight vehicles from busy roads onto water, we can free up traffic and drastically improve the quality of our environment. This vital investment means a steady flow of boats will soon be carrying a substantial proportion of the materials needed to create the Olympic Park that would otherwise have travelled by road, sealing a legacy beyond the duration of the Games themselves."
British Waterways chairman Tony Hales said the lock opening was just the start of plans for the waterways of east London, "with everything from water taxis, waste removal by water and new marinas planned for the future".
Earlier this year, British Waterways launched a major wildlife survey on UK canals and announced it was turning over unused canal-side land for use as vegetable-growing allotments.