The Jubilee River is now 24 years old. You can see a local newspaper report on the opening ceremony here and another report here
24 years later and the channel is still incapable of conveying its design capacity and has had enormous amounts of money poured in just to keep it working. So let me just briefly list some of today’s unresolved issues from Taplow and on downstream:
UNDER CONSTRUCTION – further detail to follow:
Name change from Jubilee River to Jubilee FAS
Taplow embankment scour – awaiting repair
Berry Hill footbridge – centre span replaced with steel
Ashford Lane footbridge – closed – two spans collapsed
Allotments footbridge – closed – awaiting replacement
Myrke footbridge – questionable structure
Myrke embankment – structurally failing
Black Potts footbridge – closed and about to collapse
THE FUTURE? We need to know where we are before we can go forward with the downstream extensions – so here are some questions to be considered:
The Jubilee River (MWEFAS) was opened in 2002. The downstream extension projects (LTFRMS, RTS and DHEFIM) have cost about 18 years and £120m – and are still in the development phase without an approved outline business case.
1) Who is accountable?
2) Where are we today? How much time and money has been spent on these projects?
3) What are the estimated future costs, timescales and milestones?