SCHEME ABANDONED

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXII, Issue 4641, 18 May 1938, Page 6

SCHEME ABANDONED

BARRAGE ACROSS THAMES. LOCKS FOR SHIPPING. London, April 2. We have heard the last of the ambitious Thames barrage scheme This project, which offered many substantial advantages as outlined by its promoters, was to have been the subject of an inquiry by the Port of London Authority, but now that the Government vetoed it, and the London County Council and Metropolitan Water Board have opposed it, the [ inquiry has been abandoned, and the bottom has fallen out of a big enterprise. The idea was to throw a barrage across the Thames at Woolwich, and institute six locks through which shipping might proceed at all stages of the tideway. Even the Port of London Authority was never enamoured of the proposal, and it was argued that six locks would be quite inadequate to cope with London's volume of water traffic. But what really doomed the scheme was that modern innovation which overshadows so many other things. It was pointed out by miltary experts that the Woolwich barrage and locks would present a target to enemy bombers which would be disastrous from many points of view. The whole of London's port and river life might be paralysed at one blow.