It’s a signifiant achievement for the Queen’s 60th anniversary day.

“The River Lea is now healthier than at any time over the last 20 years,” added the EA. Highlighted is the removal Japanese Knotweed, Himalayan Balsam and Floating Pennywort which once chocked the river.

More than 35 kilometres of new cycleways and footpaths have been secured for the Olympic Park. Unfortunately the planned Lea Valley Walk section alongside Bow Creek which was due to open in May has not been built.

All trains from Liverpool Street up the valley to Hertford East are now operated by the Dutch railway company Abellio under the name Greater Anglia.

The franchise is planned to last during the Olympic Year and is subject to review in 2014.

Planned changes include extending the Oyster card the end of the line.

It is the first in a series brewed in honour of William Nicholson who founded the pubs in 1873.

This was a year after he had purchased Three Mills, near the end of the Lea Valley Walk, for his J&W Nicholson & Co gin company. Distilling continued until 1941.

Three Mills Pale Ale, brewed by Nethergate in Essex, is available from Saturday 3 March.

The lock cottages were the TV studio for a decade when the programme was on Channel 4. It is understood that the house could be available again during the period of the Olympic Games.

Old Ford Lock is yards from the main Olympic Arena.

Walking towards the Games: The Glorious Lea Valley starts at 11am on Saturday at Tottenham Hale Station.

The three hour walk is free and goes south all the way to Limehouse.

This summer it was expected that a long-planned riverside path from Three Mills to the Thames would be in place along the River Lea’s final tidal stretch known as Bow Creek.

The London Thames Gateway Corporation has achieved the required planning permissions and compulsory purchase but work did not begin last autumn.

At present the climax to the fifty mile route is along the Limehouse Cut used by the navigation despite much promotion of the scheme for the alternative path linking two parts of the valley’s regional park.

Now, following transfer of £34 million of assets from the London Thames Gateway Corporation to the Greater London Authority, London Assembly member John Biggs has called on Mayor Boris Johnson to continue the regeneration project in East London and not sell the assets to raise funds.

“The responsibility for Lea River Park is being transferred and I am concerned that the lack of regeneration funding from central Government may mean that schemes like this are not delivered with assets being sold and not reinvested for the benefit of East London’s regeneration,” says John Biggs.

“By extending a strand of the park down to the Thames, together with other steps I believe we can help to spread the benefits of the Olympic Park regeneration down towards the River Thames. This would have enormous potential benefit for East London and for my constituents.”

The growing row with British Waterways is reported in The Independent.

Sir Ian McKellen, along with former partner Sean Mathias and newspaper owner Evgeny Lebedev, has bought the lease and promised not to change it too much.

The Evening Standard has a feature.

“As London’s Lake District it has the potential to be one of London’s top places to live, work and visit,” he adds.

Sadly the 180 page consultation document makes scant reference to the Lea Valley walk. There is one mention and ‘Lea’ is spelt ‘Lee’.

Comments are required to be in by 13 January.

This is just below Bow Church reached by taking the path off the towpath and walking past McDonald’s.