The Lea Valley Walk is to be partly closed during the Olympic Games.
The towpath between Arena Field, just north of Hackney Wick, and the Bow Flyover closes from Tuesday 3 July until Monday 10 September.
However, it will be possible to use the new stretch of path under the dangerous Bow road junction and walk south towards Three Mills.
My comment on the failure of the London Thames Gateway Development Corporation to start work on the promised Lea Valley Walk extension, or ‘Fatwalk’ to use the working title, appears in today’s Financial Times.
In the letter I point out that this is one of the Mayor’s Great Spaces which was due to open in Olympic year.
I should add that the chance of a through route alongside the tidal Lea soon rests with the very exciting Cody Dock project.
Lance Forman of smoked salmon factory fame is reported to be planning a “temporary beach club and riviera” complete with moored Sunseeker yachts on Fish Island.
See The Independent.
After the failure of the £15m London Thames Gateway Development Corporation scheme to open up Bow Creek with a riverside path there comes very surprising news
There is a plan to span a blockage just south of Three Mills this summer.
A wide path already runs south along the east side of the tidal Lea until it hits Cody Dock. This was built in 1870 for the Imperial Gas Company which needed to receive coal by barge.
Recently Simon Myers came up Bow Creek by boat and discovered the derelict dock. He has set up the Gasworks Dock Partnership charity which is redeveloping the site for live/work units and ship repairing.
Best of all he plans to have a wooden bascule bridge in operation this year to carry the Lea Valley Walk over the dock and allow it to continue to Trinity Buoy Wharf and East India Dock.
For this to happen £140,252 is needed by Wednesday 6 June -the day after the Jubilee weekend.
£56,418 has been raised since the appeal was launched last month.
Billy Bragg, whose grandfather worked in the dock, and John Suchet are backing the plan.
Stephen Timms MP has visited and described the project as “a great initiative”.
Details can be found on the Cody Dock website.
Surface-to-air missiles could be deployed at two Lea Valley sites during the Olympics says the Ministry of Defence.
The Bow Quarter residential block, once Brant & May, was revealed as one site yesterday.
The other is the William Girling Reservoir which lies on the east side of the Lea Valley Walk between Ponders End and Tottenham Marshes.
These potential locations for ground-based air defence systems will be part of a major exercise in which security preparations are being tested from May 2 to 10.
The residential building in Bow chosen by the Ministry of Defence to have missiles on the roof during the Olympics is a former match factory.
The old Bryant & May works just to the west of the River Lea is a landmark from the Lea Valley Walk, the Greenway and the Olympic Park.
Wood for the match production was brought up the river.
The site is famous for the 1888 Match Girls Strike which highlighted very dangerous working conditions. Highly toxic phosphors caused some workers to glow in the dark according to reports.
The present building dates from 1911 and produced matches until 1979.
I am not too keen on grass being lost but a large sculpture of a 14 foot high wooden chair is to be placed by the path between Cheshunt Station and the Olympic white water centre. It will be an Olympic legacy.
The Lea Valley Walk alongside the white water centre is expected to have bunting and fencing during the Games. The nearby streets are being decorated with banners and hanging flower baskets.
The Great British Cucumber Festival is at Waltham Abbey on Saturday 12 May.
The event in the Abbey Gardens is supported by the Lea Valley Growers who provide 75 per cent of UK cucumbers. British cucumbers are sweeter and have thinner skins.
The Festival runs from 10am to 4pm and there will also be tomatoes and peppers to taste and buy. Refreshments include a hog roast and specialist sausages. Events include The Longest Cucumber Competition.
Admission free.
According to reports yesterday and in the Evening Standard today the people occupying Porter’s Field have been moved.
Police took action after the Lee Valley Park obtained a court order.
Work on the temporary Olympic basketball structure has restarted. Meanwhile some protestors are now camped alongside Lea Bridge Road.
Local opinion is divided. My view is that since the building being erected is temporary for a once in a lifetime event it should be allowed. By this time next year it will have been removed and the grass relaid.
I feel much more concerned about what has happened to Middlesex Wharf opposite and the permanent building due to spoil downstream Essex Wharf.
The Great Bed of Ware, an Elizabethan tourist attraction mentioned in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and once displayed in the Ware’s inns, is back in the town for a year.
The Victoria & Albert Museum has lent it to Ware Museum.
It was made around 1593 and has been on show and in use at five inns over more than two centuries. In the Victoria era it was an attraction at Rye House to the south of Ware which was a day trip from from London by train.
The bed is mentioned by Shakespeare, Ben Johnson, Byron and has recently appeared in a poem by Andrew Motion.