The Big Smoke

Last summer, Britain watched dumbstruck as its towns drowned under sheets of flood water. Eleven people were killed and thousands of businesses and tens of thousands of homes were lost in the deluge, which peaked on July 20 when more than 120mm of rain was dumped on southern England. So far London has remained relatively immune to severe flooding. But for how much longer?

With the land around London’s waterways increasingly being snapped up by developers, the city is gaining some impressive architecturalp rojects but it could also be storing up a host of environmental problems, including an exacerbated threat of floods.

This is just one of the issues explored in an exhibition on London’s waterways from New London Architecture, an organisation dedicated to the built environment. The city’s rivers and canals were once grotty and neglected places, but they have undergone a dramatic renaissance over the last few decades. ‘Late in the day, we have woken up to water being a big attraction in terms of work and leisure use,’ says Peter Murray, exhibition director at New London Architecture.

Apart from the growth of interest in leisure activities around canals and rivers, there has been a boom in waterside property developments – a river location can add as much as 20 per cent to the value of a property. Recent architectural activity at sites on or near the waterways includes plans for a clutch of skyscrapers, such as the 1,016-foot Shard at London Bridge, the 554-foot Beetham Tower at Blackfriars and the 1,000-foot Vauxhall Tower at Vauxhall Cross. Architect Terry Farrell’s plans for Lots Road power station in Chelsea include a riverside ‘village’ with residential, office and retail space, as well as a park and water garden. Meanwhile two towers from developers Bennets Association are under consideration for City Road Basin at Angel.

But campaigners are concerned that rapid regeneration ignores the interests of canal users, local communities and the environment. ‘There has been a development frenzy, and we are suffering from its impact,’ says Del Brenner, chair of the Regent’s Canal Network, a group which campaigns on waterway issues. ‘Canals in particular are quiet, secluded places and these glass and concrete buildings don’t suit that environment.’ Brenner says large developments overshadow waterways, block out the light and take away the open nature of the riverside. Many new developments along the Thames are also gated and private, offering poor access for the rest of the community. ‘Large blocks, such as St George’s wharf, near Vauxhall, have totally changed the character of the river. They have priced out local people and cut them off from the water,’ he says.

Peter Murray admits that some developments have been problematic. ‘One of the problems with recent riverside architecture is that developers go to torturous design ends to ensure that occupiers get a view of the river, but that means that they turn their back on the community behind,’ he says.

But by far the biggest waterway regeneration project in London is the use of canals to deliver materials for the 2012 Olympics. A major restoration project underway at Prescott Channel, south of the Olympic Park, will allow 350-ton barges to enter the channel two at a time, reducing local lorry journeys by 1,200 each week. ‘We want a legacy from the Olympics to spark greater use of waterways for freight transport,’ says Brenner, who cites a recent successful scheme in Liverpool where Tesco transports all its wine by barge.

Other Olympic-related schemes include a mass clean-up of east London’s waterways, transforming them into a Water City – an East End Amsterdam of boats, parklands, wildlife habitats and waterside homes.

However, plans to build in the Lea Valley as part of the 2012 Games regeneration legacy, as well as the massive house-building scheme proposed for Thames Gateway are cause for alarm, according to Brenner. ‘The Lea Valley and Gateway area is one big floodplain. It could flood tomorrow. If building takes place on flood plains, water from the river can’t overflow and has no way of escape. It accumulates and then you have a huge flooding problem.’

In fact, flooding has already caused major damage in the city. Heavy rain in August 2004 ended up pumping billions of gallons of sewage into rivers from storm water overflows and killing thousands of fish.

Some developers and architects are becoming more aware of local and environmental needs. The Cremone Riverside Centre, a canoeing storage facility near the World’s End estate in Chelsea, has been built to specifically cater to local children, as well as being designed with sustainable materials, and a structure that is easily flood-removable. Mayor Ken Livingstone is also revising ways to toughen up his Blue Ribbon Network strategy (which set out a vision of an accessible network of canals and waterways, as part of his London Plan in 2004). The strategy had been criticised for failing to halt swathes of unsympathetic developments.

London has rich riverside treasures. The imperative is to prevent the slow incremental loss of these watery arteries.

‘Waterfront London: Rediscovering the Rivers and Canals of the Capital’ is at New London Architecture, The Building Centre, 26 Store St, WC1 (020 7636 4044/www.newlondonarchitecture.org) Jan 10 to Feb 23.