please empty your brain below

We paid a visit on Sat. The gates to the Lea Way were shut but the main gates in from South Crescent were open. The planters were lovely, and the next door waste disposal horrible, all as expected.

It's seems such a shame that the locked gates at Twelvetrees, Cody Dock, Limmo Eco Peninsular can't simply be unlocked. I appreciate there's all sorts of potential health, safety and privacy issues but still. It's nothing that a simple warning sign (be an adult!) couldn't mitigate.

I'm not holding out a lot of hope for the extension of the Leaway beyond Cody Dock. That just looks like too much potential for a public-private dispute. And too much money for new fencing and path building. But all the rest looks like it just requires a key.

"The Line will open on Saturday 23rd May". Hooray! Just as long as you can get at it.
"completing a 50 mile path along the Lea from Luton to the Thames. All the upstream stuff exists".

Cody Dock to Hertford is pretty much complete. Hertford to Luton, not so much. There are parallel paths and roads for most of it within sight of the river but not what you would call a towpath. And frequent diversions around private areas like Hatfield House grounds.
It seems a bit cheeky developing a industrial site in the middle of an industrial area and then complaining about the surrounding industry! Hopefully the docks project and the recycling center can work together, otherwise the area’s sustainability credentials will have taken quite a hit. If the tip if forced to close then maybe the staff can get a job in a popup tea shop?
Beautiful description of the riverside walk, DG.
I loved this well turned phrase "I love the peace, decay and urban beauty".

But perhaps the thing that will live with me is the challenge of what does sustainability mean and how do you balance interests here where you have waste processing, jobs and urban landscape and recreation.
What London (and perhaps many other large cities/urban areas) needs are more trees?
To many "developments", too much "regeneration" and all host of other "buzzwords" but little in "greening" our surroundings. Only have to look at the recent "smog" and how it was handled to see that little has been done over the last couple of decades to improve the very air we breathe. Yes, they said it "drifted" in from somewhere else, but it was compounded by our own doing. Plus with the population increase forecast things will get worse. All the talk of increasing wealth etc is no good if many (usally the poorest) suffer from its side-effects.
In your first sentence, were the volunteers rounded up from someone's shed? Or were they all placed on the back of a truck and driven round a corner too fast?
geo_rich. It's also a bit cheeky to have a long history of flouting the environmental and planning laws to then apply for retrospective planning permission for changes you've already made.

There are no easy answers to this tension between old industrial brown field and new urban development both environmental and social. This tension plays out from Hackney Marshes all the way to the Thames and on to the Royal docks. We have planning laws and environmental laws to try and find some balance and to keep the worst abuse in check. It's important that we respect that and that they're allowed to work and enforced.
Julian, Yep, I agree 100% The same plays out in the countryside, with tensions between farming and recreation.
Your article is interesting and well written but as the designer of the 'pop-up rockery' you mention I just wanted to give you a couple of facts about it.

This garden is a Pocket Parks project, nothing to do with RHS or Chelsea Flower Show (or indeed Ground Force). It has been transformed from a hole in the ground by a team of dedicated community volunteers who have come each Wednesday to work on the site throughout the last 6 months, after an earlier 6 month period of community consultation.

It is a sensory garden, including rockery, willow fedge, native raised beds, a bog, and indeed a water feature (the pipes are not solid, they are tuned musical pipes that are played with water - which makes them dedicated west ham fans).

I'm sorry you were not able to get in on the day you came - usually the gates are not locked even when closed during daytime hours and there is always someone on site to answer questions so you could have had a proper look for yourself at both sites.

Thanks for the well wishes and hope to meet you in person on site sometime. Stephen
Hi Stephen

Thanks for the update, and for explaining what the 'pop-up rockery' really was. I've tweaked the relevant paragraph in the post a bit so as not to be so wholly misleading.

Having arrived at the site to discover a closed gate in a security fence, and no sign suggesting access was possible or permitted, and nobody nearby to talk to, I obviously returned the way I came.

Keep up the good work - the place is looking much lovelier as a result.
The gate on the industrial estate side is often unlocked but closed. The problem is the fence and gates on the Leaway side as you walk down from Twelvetrees.

Hopefully this will be open more often when The Line is launched (May 23?) and it's not waiting for a more permanent bridge over the dock.

Anyone have any news about the ramp or bridge at Twelvetrees? It's still a pain to get from the 3 Mills towpath to the Leaway.










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