The Lower Lea Valley has long suffered from significant disconnect, both along and across. It still isn't possibly to walk down the river between Bromley-by-Bow and Canning Town without diverting into a manky industrial hinterland. And it still isn't possible to cross the river for over a mile between Bow Locks and the A13, this despite thousands of new homes being built in the locality. Now finally a connecting bridge might actually be built, although I've said that before so any confidence may be utterly misplaced.
1993: Lea Valley Walk follows the Limehouse Cut to the Thames because the last mile is inaccessible 2000s: Half-mile dead-end riverfront promenade opens opposite Bow Locks 2009: Plans for linear Leaside park and riverside path (the 'Fatwalk') 2012: Cody Dock opens, connecting dead end to industrial estate 2016: Fatwalk renamed the Leaway (but remains unbuilt) 2016: Ramp opens linking Twelvetrees Bridge to Lea towpath 2019: Cycle ramp opens beside A13 underpass 2021: Funding for new Lochnagar Bridge (but no subsequent action)
Here's a map I showed you in 2019, since when nothing has changed connectivitywise. There are still no extra bridges across the river and the 'Coming Soon' along the river never happened.
The latest development is a joint project between Tower Hamlets and Newham because a bridge has to involve them both. It's called the Mayer Parry Bridge and is one of five tentative crossings the councils put forward for levelling-up funding in 2021. At the time the intention was to focus on the Lochnagar Bridge instead, a footbridge roughly halfway down the disjoint mile. It has planning consent but not full funding, also still no sign of developers building any of the proposed flats on the west side, so that's been mothballed in favour of something deliverable. The Mayer Parry Bridge has thus been promoted from option 2 to option 1, and if all goes to plan construction could begin next year. Where the red line is.
(the other crossings that look like footbridges only carry cables, so ignore those)
On the Tower Hamlets side the bridge launches off from the corner of the old Poplar Gasworks, which is currently being transformed into 2800 homes. One day the entire squarish plot will be covered, but for now only the west corner has flats. On the Newham side the bridge lands in the corner of what before 2022 was the Mayer Parry scrap metal recycling yard, since cleared out. It too is to be redeveloped, indeed the groundworks have already started. Annoyingly these two sites aren't opposite each other, the remainder of the riverside occupied by industrial units and business estates, so the cunning bit is to make the bridge cross the river on a diagonal. Across here.
This is the view from the A13 bridge, an unpleasant roar that those on the Poplar side have to cross if they want to get to Canning Town station. The Mayer Parry Bridge, if built, would provide many with a quicker and more pleasant shortcut. Down below is the seriously tidal end of the River Lea, known as Bow Creek, held back at the highest tides behind a floodwall of corrugated metal. You can see a huge crane is already on site marking out the land ready for the laying of foundations. The new development will be called CrownWharf, will have 800 flats and is presented as "a fantastic opportunity for Newham to densify around a major transport interchange." Four riverside towers are planned and you already know exactly what they'll look like, but feel free to click here to confirm.
What really surprised me is what's planned for the far end of the site between the flats and the start of the Mayer Parry Bridge. It's an absolutely massive data centre, to be precise an 80MW Hyperscale Data Centre, designed by Foster and Partners no less. To fit the space it needs to be over 70m tall, already cut down from 90m during the planning process, with separate blocks containing plant, data halls, heat recovery and water processing. It's the perfect spot for one of the largest data centres in the UK because The London Internet Exchange, a key global switch-house, is just across the river. Even so, blimey, the rundown urban backwoods of Bidder Street will never look the same again.
As for the landing point on the west bank, it takes a very long time to turn a gasworks into housing. Poplar's gasholders were disassembled as long ago as 2017, then during lockdown I watched as remediation works eventually gave birth to the first few residential skeletons. Thus far only two blocks are complete and two more part-sold, with the developers planning a "Special Lunar New Year Open House Weekend" which tells you all you need to know about the intended purchasers. It feels strange to be able to walk into what was once heavily contaminated land, past boards promoting swimming pools and spa rooms for residents, down generic walkways that could be any new housing development in London.
The Mayer Parry Bridge landing site is screened off and entirely inaccessible, it being part of Phase 3 whereas we're still only on Phase 1. You can however walk down to the river's edge because that's where they located the Sales Office, inexplicably crunching across hundreds of purple shells scattered across the promenade. From the gull-splattered rail you can then look out towards another development shooting up on the far side of a mudflat meander, also two more locations where nobody can afford to build a footbridge. Without a crossing it takes 30 minutes to walk to the opposite bank rather than potentially two.
A consultation event for the Mayer Parry Bridge is taking place on Tuesday between 9am and 2pm at a cafe on the Poplar side. I would have gone but I'm out of town that day so feel free to interrogate the staff on our behalf and report back. I'm particularly interested in the great unmentioned subject in all the online collateral which is whether the footpath along the Lea gets completed at the same time as the bridge. There's already a mothballed promenade beyond Cody Dock so all that was ever needed was an onward connection through the old scrap metal yard, and seemingly the bridge connection delivers that too. What a brilliant outcome that would be, for locals, cyclists and long distance ramblers alike.
The intention is for construction to begin on the Mayer Parry Bridge in 2027, with the slender diagonal span opened to the public in 2029. But as I said we've been here before and nothing's happened, even with all parties onside, so it wouldn't surprise me if I'm still writing about utter inaccessibility in the Lower Lea Valley in 2030 and beyond.
