Thames Landscape Strategy - Hampton to Kew -

Putting the Thames Back into Kingston

Launched in July 2005, this exciting Thames Landscape Strategy project aims to transform many areas of Kingston’s riverside and initiate a real revival in the use of the Thames. Like so many towns, Kingston traditionally turned its back on the river due mainly to the industry that lined its banks. But scratch beneath the surface and Kingston also has the most glorious boating traditions. It is the town that Jerome K Jerome hired his skiff from before setting off, three men in a boat, up the Thames to Oxford and there are more rowing, sailing, canoe, punting and skiff clubs clustered around the town than almost anywhere on the Thames.

The Thames Landscape Strategy plan is simply to ‘Put the Thames Back into Kingston’, to celebrate this watery heritage and to use it as a mechanism to regenerate the use and character of the Thames corridor linked to wider Borough initiatives and the Environment Agencies Waterways Plan.

To make Kingston a key Thameside centre it has been important to look at the riverside open spaces from the point of view of how they interact with the river itself including its wildlife, flooding and use. Working closely with the Royal Borough of Kingston and the Environment Agency, the TLS is currently consulting on what local people and users of the river would like to see improved. An ‘Integrated Moorings Business Plan’ has been produced to prepare the way for a raft of enhancements to Kingston’s waterspace such as floating restaurants, buiseness boats, permanent and visitor moorings.

Alongside the river, several early hits have been designed and consulted on that are ready to be implemented before the main project is ready. At the Half Mile Tree on Lower Ham Road a discreet landscaping scheme has been implemented to include scrub works, footpath and access enhancements and signage installation. On the Lower Ham Road a volunteer group has been established to help tidy up rubbish in the river and to coppice overgrown trees and at the upstream entrance to Cranbury Gardens a landscaping initiative has been designed to open up a short section of riverside that has formally been off limits to the public.

Putting the Thames Back into Kingston will extend from the borough boundary stone through to the redundant filter beds at Seething Wells. It is being project managed by the Thames Landscape Strategy in partnership with Andrew Lynch and Ian Myhead of the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames.