THE RIVER THAMES

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 26, 30 July 1937, Page 13

THE RIVER THAMES

BIG DAM PROPOSED

INQUIRY TO BE HELD

(From ''The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, June 23.

The Thames Barrage Association has long entertained a plan to spend £4,500,000 in building a dam at Woolwich and thereby convert the River Thames for 30 mil2s above that spot into a slowly moving lake with constant high level from bank to bank. The fact that the Port of London Authority has decided to hold an inquiry into the arguments put forward by the association has stirred to activity all interested in. the future of the Thames.

The association claims that such a dam would provide London with a cleaner, better, and more navigable waterway. The dam would be 1500 feet in length, and 24, feet deep at low water. It would have a set of six locks in the centre, and a road and rail bridge along the top, on the principle of the Tower Bridge. Kent would be linked with Essex.

At the present time, it is argued, the Thames below Teddinglon is not a river; it is an estuary in which the water flows up and down, twice reversed every twenty-four hours by the tides. The association believes that this is not good for London, and that the sweep of a tide twice a day through the city and the riverside boroughs is not a good thing for public health and for commerce. Mr. J. H. O. Bunge, the honorary secretary, says that his organisation's argument for a tideless Thames is the only one which would bring the Thames "up to date," according to modern standards. It would leave the way clear for all the large ships to go into dock as before. The dam would be located a shorter distance above the main sewer outfalls at Barking Creek and Crossness, which dump into the Thames an average of 270,0U0,000 gallons of only partially treated sewage every day. The roadway would link up with the north and south circular roads.

The present ferry system has proved to be inadequate, and plans, for an enormous and costly bridge have been considered for ten years without anything being done. ; , The exclusion of the tide above Barking would definitely prevent 81 per cent, of the sewage from penetrating the heart o£ London. This question of pollution has long engaged the attention of engineers. One scheme, to cost £110,000,000, was prepared to take the effluents of London sewage through the Medway Valley and Kent to Dungeness and the open Channel. This, it is claimed, would be obviated by a £4,500,000 barrage at Woolwich.

Both sides, the P.L.A. and the Barrage Association, are now arming themselves heavily for the inquiry in the light of research and technical considerations.

Much of the opposition comes from people who believe that tidal action is helpful and healthy. This argument is completely erroneous and based largely on sentimental considerations,, the Barrage Association declares, and adds: "London in keeping to tides is behind the times. If the tides are removed, labour will be decasualised. We believe that with obtaining constant twoway traffic on the river at all times barging and towing will become much cheaper, and that a great deal more labour will be necessary in consequence. With a tideless Thames there would be greater use of the river for the transporting of bulk materials, and this would relieve land traffic parallel to the river, a great deal of it of the slowest moving types. London would be removed from the danger of flooding, which is always possible when high tides coincide with a north-east or north-west wind in the North Sea and with abnormal flows over Teddington. ■Nothing at present exists to prevent these floods. Actually, with increased dredging, the danger has been increased.