London's waterways

London Landscape Plans: 1829, 1900, 1929, 1943, 1951, 1969, 1976, 1988, 1990, 1992, 2000, 2004, London landscape architecture,

1. The Tower of London was once a fortress and is now a tourist attraction.
2. London's canals were once more dangerous than railway lines (because of the horses pulling barges) but are being re-planned for leisure.
3. The River Thames, and London's other rivers, were once industruial arteries and should be re-claimed for recreation and nature conservation.

Canals Some criticisms could be made but by and large the job of reclaiming London's canals is being effectively done. Money is available, from British Waterways and developers, and a team of landscape designers have been working at the job for 30 years. The Greater London Council had a Canalway Parks project in the 1970s.

Rivers Reclamation, though vastly more important than canal reclamation, has been largely  neglected. Though there have been a few good projects (eg a section of the  River Ravensbourne and a section of the River Cray).  New River Walk is more canal than river. The obstacles to river reclamation have been:

1. Lack of interest from public authorities
2. Lack of money
3. Control by drainage and flood engineers
4. Many rivers are boundaries, so that adjoining councils and landowners can consider them to be a neighbour's responsibility.

The River Thames is the greatest challenge. Ken Livingstone's manifesto pledge to declare it a Blue Ribbon Zone is a Great Step Forward. But, as always, there will be a need for people, money and power - if anything worthwhile is to be achieved.

When London's open space planners used to base their work on the concept of Open Space Deficiency (eg the 1951 plan), they did not treat the River Thames as an 'open space' (presumable because it was water, not grass).