Forum Topic

Watermans park

Got off the bus tonight a couple of stops early to go to Watermans Arts centre as I thought it would be nice to walk along the river. Watermans Park looked very sorry for itself. What’s with the ugly Heras fencing along the whole river stretch and preventing access to the boardwalk?  The bins need some TLC or replacement too - no point in officious notices about not dumping if the bins themselves are rusted and useless. I guess the nearly submerged wrecks of boats moored alongside are a completely different and more complicated story.  But I thought it was sad that such a heavily developed area did not have a more attractive green space which was once much more pleasant to use.

Marie Power ● 2448d13 Comments

I haven't been in there for ages, although I'm at the Waterman's several times a month. Pity if they've let it go to rack and ruin.

Susan Kelly ● 2448d

Rack and ruin would probably be overstating it but unloved certainly and the Heras fencing is really horrid. I thought London boroughs were supposed to be making the most of the Thames and tributaries where they’re lucky enough to have them - and this stretch is on the official Thames Path as well I think - but you’d be hard pressed to know that here in Brentford.

Marie Power ● 2448d

I agree it's in a poor state at present but things should look up very soon in the new year. There has been a protracted legal battle to deal with the unlawful collection of boats that have colonised the park for many years. This battle is now over, as I understand it, but people have been trying to live on the remaining derelict and mostly sunken boats and the Heras fencing is to discourage this. There was a rescue in the last couple of weeks involving several fire engines, ambulances, police and the lifeboat from Chiswick. I understand that an individual who was using a sunken boat sustained a shoulder injury.I believe the work to restore the river wall and create official moorings for circa 20 houseboats will commence very soon, probably in January. There is now a Friends group https://e-voice.org.uk/fowp/  who are working with the council to improve the park. It will, of course, have a lane of the new cycleway running through it near to the back wall and there will be some improvements coming out of the marina investment. The Friends are involved in discussing these and I'm pretty sure they will welcome more members/supporters.I know new bins are already on order!

Guy Lambert ● 2447d

Guy - I thought there were plans to take over the eastern end of Waterman's Park and build an underground car park for the hotels/flats opposite?  Has this been dropped now?Also I thought the entire Park was going to be raised up to road level leaving the towpath itself only on the lower riverside level?  We won't recognise the place will we with lycra bums up heads down charging along a fair width of the existing Park thus reducing it still further for children and people seeking a peaceful visit.  What a waste of what could have been a stunning must visit destination to a riverside park, adjoining a lovely new art centre with riverside dining, a cafe, cinema and performing spaces etc.  Ah well - that's LBH - grind 'em down - the more expensive skyboxes the better!

Jennifer Selig ● 2447d

It looks on the plans that the park is going to be seriously decimated to little more than a little strip of greenery with a playground in it.Given that his was a new dawn open space cited to the people of Brentford by North Thames Gas as an open space and opening up the river after generations of industrial pollution which makes a stark comparison to what it is like now, this is a retrograde move by putting a cycle motorway through the park and having uninsured people on machines carving straight through it. No better than the busy road which is at least screened by the river wall ( which remains the secondary flood defence which seems to have also been conveniently buried with so many infrastructural  installations in this town.

Raymond Havelock ● 2447d

Jennifer: no, there were never any plans like you suggest. The plan has a binstore for the boats beneath a small car park at road level in approximately the area which is currently tarmaced over at the Kew Bridge end of the park.And no, no plans to raise the level of the park.Raymond: cycle motorway is a contradiction in terms. In any case, all that is proposed is a single lane heading westbound and designed to encourage people of all ages, shapes and sizes to get out of their polluting and often dangerous cars. Talking as someone of considerable age, shape and size who has already been knocked of his bike in this stretch, and someone who has seen a young woman on a bike deliberately attacked by a car (and whose audiologist has been knocked from her bike twice, and hospitalised once on this stretch while commuting from Chiswick to WM Hospital) the sooner it is built, the better. Note: there has not, I undersatnd, been a single injury recorded resulting from a collision between a cyclist and pedestrian on Chiswick High Road between 2005 and 2018 - ie the whole period such stats have been collected.I will also welcome properly provisioned moorings being provided for about 20 boats, each of which will pay some rent and council tax and feed their waste into the sewerage system rather than the river.

Guy Lambert ● 2447d

CHECK

Stephen Alexander ● 2394d

A single cycle path heading westward only where are the ones going in opposite direction expected to go? I,say this tongue in cheek as cyclists appear to need to travel in both directions both ways on New cycle lanes, wonder does anyone plan the whole route before work starts,not just each individual section, i.e. Boston manor road have ealing and hounslow actually discussed this!!!

Jean Harrison ● 2394d

JeanCycleway 9 is a TfL project and has been extensively and comprehensively planned, consulted, redesigned, reconsulted and approved, from the Beehive to the Kensington and Chelsea border (I'm not sure whether the Hammersmith and Fulham section has been finally approved by H&F, but it's at least close to approval.)The Boston Manor Cycle lane is a LB Hounslow project up to the station, though paid for by TfL, certainly in large part.It is designed primarily to provide safe access to BM station for the businesses on the GWR. Negotiations to take a bit of land from GSK took a long time so at present the lane ends at the GSK car park entry. Works will commence next month to complete that last bit down to the A4.North of the station is an LBE project, conceived somewhat later and with different constraints, mainly that the road and pavement is much narrower, so will always be a different kind of cycle lane.

Guy Lambert ● 2394d

Where can we view the plans for the section of Waterman's Park being given over "the eastern part of the Park which has been leased from the Council for the new marina car park and storage building and access path to the new moorings."  This planned car park must be at road level or how are cars to access it?  Is the tfl cycle track also at road height?  All of this will reduce considerably the size of the actual green, grassy Park.  How many mature trees are going?

Jennifer Selig ● 2386d

There's a piece on the front page about a public meeting on Tuesday to discuss the plans for the cycleway in the park.

Jane Martin ● 2384d

All I can find on the LBH site is a very long document "Planning Committee 12 May 2016  Ref: P/2015/4055  00607/AMPS.  It shows a plan of the Park's proposed  "improvements".  On this is a Car Park (for the Marina people only I think) at the Eastern end, at road level with a lift down to a Marina storage, waste disposal, bike storage etc., beneath this.  So that's a chunk of the Park taken out for this underground concrete bunker!  Has this now changed since this 2016 document?The new Cycle way is not shown - Guy you say it's only single lane, presume that going west from Kew Bridge towards Brentford.  Do the cyclists traveling from Brentford towards Kew Bridge stay up on the road itself?  Anyway, only a single track cycle lane will eat into the Park's green spaces, further reducing it.    Fully agree the rotting old boats needed to be removed,the riverside walk and Waterman's Park itself enhanced.  However, there's a huge cost both monetary and ecologically to sinking large numbers of pylons into the tidal river, building chevron moorings, underground storage and car parking facilities and destroying a large segment of green open space.  Is this worth it in order to encourage 20 boats to moor and pay fees to Hounslow Council?  Has anyone actually costed this entire exercise?  Have they any idea of how long it will be before it breaks even let alone bring in any profits.

Jennifer Selig ● 2384d

Where is the Town Planner when you want one?  Brentford has been raped by the developers without a care for the environment.  Any little space or plot of land is grabbed to make way for more shoebox sized flats.  It is disgraceful.

Carol Jean Lamb ● 2380d