Joint Head of Canada Water welcomes boardwalk
L to R: British Land's Roger Madelin and Emma Cariaga, Cllr Bethan Roberts, Mayor of Southwark Naima Ali, Cllr Stephanie Cryan, Neil Coyle MP, Cllr Helen Dennis, Cllr Kath Whittam
We were bowled over by how many people turned out to help open the new boardwalk across Canada Dock on Saturday. With around 2,500 people coming to celebrate the revitalised natural habitat and enjoy the family fun, some of those at the back might have struggled to catch the speech from our Joint Head of Canada Water Roger Madelin. Never fear… if you missed it on the day, you can read it in full here:
“Good afternoon everyone and welcome to the official opening of the world’s first (and we think only!) 170m long red bridge across a dock. Thank you for coming along to the activities and fun, which start in earnest after I stop shouting at you all!
My name is Roger Madelin and I have the privilege with my colleague here, Emma Cariaga, of being one of the co-heads of the Canada Water Masterplan development, which over the coming decade aims to deliver a whole new town centre.
I’d like to give a particular warm welcome to The Mayor of Southwark Naima Ali and some of her councillor colleagues.
After the Romans 2000 years ago and King Canute 1000 years ago, the Elizabethans a mere 500 years ago greatly expanded the docks and boat-building activities here. Much of the peninsula was then marshlands with wetland wildlife abundant.
Channels and ponds were cut out to obtain gravel for ballast and building materials and with streams between the ponds flowing into the river. Seven islands were formed, giving that name to the area.
Around 150 years ago many more docks had been built. Canada Dock, which opened in 1876, being the last major one. Massive ships from Scandinavia and Canada arrived here full of timber, with the sawn soft wood timber known as deal.
With the closure of the inner London docks in 1969, during the 1970s most of the docks here were filled in, including two-thirds of what was then Canada Dock, leaving Canada Water here today isolated from the river.
Our first phase of development within the masterplan has already delivered 79 affordable family homes next to Russia Dock Woodland but the dock here and the buildings behind me will be what most people will experience and see; with offices, restaurants and cafes, new homes and a brand new major leisure centre for Southwark to replace the tired but much loved Seven Islands one on Lower Road. All completing next year.
When the idea of building a walkway across the dock was proposed, the first telephone call we made was to London Wildlife Trust. Since that call LWT have been by our side working closely with Townshend Landscape Architects ensuring that wildlife is at the heart of the project. I would like to thank you to David Mooney, the CEO at London Wildlife Trust ,and his team, and also thanks to Gary Alden and Grazia Comai from Townshends.
So we have now created seven new islands with different wetland habitants and over 1km of new wetland edge habitat.
Great towns and great parts of cities can never be great, or sustainable into the future, without there being great routes, connections and public spaces interwoven into their fabric. Working with our masterplan architects Allies and Morrison with Townshends and the planning team at Southwark Council, our plan for Canada Water is to create the very best landscaped routes and parks through every phase of the development and to connect into the wonderful parks, docks and woods around us. We want people to choose to come here, and to join the 30,000 amazing people already here within the existing surrounding communities, to live, to work, to visit and to stay because of the great routes and spaces. Places to enjoy, to experience nature and to linger.
Imagine walking to work, the doctors or to the shops and feeling grumpy. You then see five baby cygnets or even a kingfisher? You might still be grumpy but hopefully less so.
Asif Khan, the award-winning architect and designer - who hails from Southwark - was chosen to design the bridge. He will tell you how he intended the gently undulating walkway not only to cross the water but also to evoke the crossing of time, back to an era when the dock welcomed ships laden with timber from across the Atlantic. To walk across this bridge is to follow in the footsteps of the rafters, dock workers who hopped between floating planks as they readied the cargo for distribution. The red colour references the red pine unloaded here in Victorian times, and the maple leaf flag of Canada where the wood was harvested. The timber fins supporting the walkway recall the ad hoc structures used by the incredibly strong deal porters, who carried the huge baulks of wood over their shoulders at the dockside.
The statue behind me shows them.
Asif Khan, The London Wildlife Trust and Townshends of course needed others to turn ideas into reality. Whitby Wood, the structural engineers, and many colleagues at British Land, James Turley and Mike Delfs in particular, have worked tirelessly to get the project here for us today but it is the craftsmen and contractors that have actually been out in all weathers delivering day after day. Galldris the main contractor, Willerby Landscapes, planting over 27,000 plants, Xylotek supplying and installing the timber work and Maylem undertaking all the hard landscape and step building. Thank you all.
However, the real stars of the show are the wildlife. I would particularly like to say thank you to the pair of moorhens, Marvin and Molly, and the pair of swans that due to climate change messing up our seasons decided to lay eggs early in the February we planned to start. Between them they managed to delay the project by five months, but it was certainly a reminder as to why we are doing this. The swans over there - those arrogant looking ones - were the first to move into the new wetlands. Arrogant maybe, but majestic indeed.”
Read more about the boardwalk opening party here.
