Freight

London has used waterways to transport goods and materials throughout its history. Well into the 20th century, the waterways helped the city trade with the rest of the country and the world. The end of traditional canal carrying in the 1960s and closure of the docks a decade later ended a chapter in London's boating history. This is not, however, the end of the story.

Modern environmental concerns, added to the growing pressure on London's transport infrastructure, have led many to look at how the waterways can be brought back into use for freight.

The waterways' potential for carrying freight is now recognised at a national and regional level, including the Government policy Waterways for Tomorrow and the Mayor's London Plan. We are committed to turning this policy into action and are aiming to increase freight-carrying on our waterways ten-fold in the next decade.

Water transport is intrinsically 'greener' than road haulage, but recent studies have shown that it can also be cheaper and we are focusing our efforts on areas of particular opportunity, such as the west London canal network, River Lee Navigation, West India Docks and Lower Lea Valley. Working closely with Transport for London and other partners we have identified a number of niche markets - such as construction materials and recyclates - where non-time sensitive cargoes can be taken off the capital's already congested roads.

The development of Canary Wharf has already shown how construction materials can be moved by barge, and our regeneration of the adjacent Wood Wharf site will be an exemplar of best practice in terms of sustainable transport. Water transport is also an attractive solution for moving spoil away from the planned Crossrail project, via West India Docks and even, perhaps, the Grand Union Canal at Paddington.

West London's canal network offers some particularly exciting opportunities, combining canalside light industry, lock-free waterway, a new working wharf at Denham and Powerday's new recycling centre at Old Oak Sidings. Working with TfL we have begun a series of infrastructure improvements and believe that this waterway could feasibly carry over 500,000 tonnes of recyclates per year.

In east London, the Waste by Water project has demonstrated the viability of using the River Lee Navigation between Hackney and Edmonton and we, TfL, North London Waste Authority and LB Hackney are now taking forward the development of a multi-modal refuse collection vehicle to move materials between road, rail and river.

However, perhaps the biggest opportunity is around the planned Olympic Park where we are working with the Olympic Development Authority, Port of London Authority and other stakeholders to bring construction traffic into the heart of the planned Olympic Zone. If successful we believe this could kick-start a water freight revival across the region.

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