Three Mills Lock has opened up the waterways in and around the Olympic Park so deliveries can be made by barge.Three Mills Lock at Prescott Channel will help London 2012 to meet its sustainability targets by unlocking the Bow Back Rivers waterways so 350-tonne barges can make deliveries to the Olympic Park.
This will take hundreds of lorry journeys away from local roads and save thousands of tonnes of C02.
A tug and barge, flanked by a fleet of colourful narrowboats, will use the new structure to test its gates ahead of deliveries to the Olympic Park planned for later this month.
Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) Chairman John Armitt, who opened the lock with British Waterways Chairman Tony Hale on World Environment Day, said: ‘The Olympic Park is characterised by a series of waterways, acting as green corridors running through its heart, and this is just one of the many projects the ODA is involved with to enhance them.
‘We have recently started dredging these waterways, improving water quality and opening up the navigation to allow freight boats to carry construction materials in to, and waste out of, the Park.’
In the longer term, the works will provide new opportunities for leisure boats, water taxis, trip boats and floating restaurants, creating a major boating destination in the area.
Read the British Waterways media release
