I shall be giving a talk about the Lea Valley Walk at Luton Central Library on Saturday 8 September at 2pm.

It will be  a chance to discuss the valley’s future following  the Olympic coverage which has made the route so famous.

All are welcome.

There is a chance to look ahead and find out how it will feel to follow the Lea Valley Walk alongside the Olympic Park in 2024.

Architects Allies and Morrison, who have been involved in plans for the Olympic Park area since 2003, are displaying drawings, models and photographs illustrating their work on masterplans and legacy.

Huge maps show the area centred on Old Ford Lock in 2004, now and in 2024.

The 2024 maps, including an A-Z page, show Monier Road on Fish Island running across the River Lea and towpath eastwards into the park.

The exhibition at Allies and Morrison, 85 Southwark Street SE1, is open Monday to Friday 10am to 5.30pm; admission free.

The original models can be seen as part of the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts

Fish Island in 2024 with Monier Road continuing east across the Lea

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I had to visit the Olympic Park western boundary during the first week of London 2012.

It was possible to get a seat on the DLR to Bow Church Station. I was sorry to find the ancient Bow Church closed which seems a lost opportunity. But I was delighted to be able to enter Our Lady & St Catherine of Siena Roman Catholic Church which is open 9am to midnight and enjoying a steady flow of visitors. There is a history display at the back and handy free toilets.

Also open longer hours is the riverside Counter Cafe on Fish Island. There is plenty of room on the terrace or upstairs (where there is live Olympic television coverage) during the day. It’s more crowded with Olympic volunteers in the evening enjoying the home-made food.

Swan Wharf by Old Ford Lock is occupied by The Fringe. Here there is now free admission and you can enjoy and drink and a burger whilst watching water chariots tying up at the ‘bus stop’ opposite. There is a big screen. Swan Wharf has previously been used for storing pianos (made on the island), spices and peanuts.

More expensive is the Forman’s Fish Island Riviera described as where “Saint-Tropez meets Mayfair”.

The top of the Olympic Arena can be seen from the island but the view will be much better when the sponsor pavilions within the official zone come down. So the Counter Cafe has a good future and will again be a handy stop for walkers wanting to relax with a good view.

Grampian Police were patrolling the island on Saturday.

The Greenway can be accessed from Fish Island as far as the bridge over the Lea.

The Lea Valley Walk’s huge Olympic diversion from Hackney Marsh to Bow remains a mystery. The puzzle continues with LVW diversion signs pointing in two directions on Fish Island.

The best way to visit Fish Island this summer is from the south via Bow’s Fairfield Road or from the north starting at Hackney Wick Station. From the station go to the bridge over the Lea to take not the Lea towpath but the opposite path leading into the Hertford Union Canal. Here a footbridge links to Fish Island.

The River Lea

A model of the Olympic Park and part of the River Lea made of Lego can be seen at St Katharine Dock next to Tower Bridge.

It’s part of the Imagine Denmark national showcase which runs until Sunday 12 August and is open 11am to 11pm.

English Heritage has produced a leaflet called London’s Lea Valley: the Olympic Park Story.

It describes the area as “until recently a little-known and largely uninhabited landscape of wild vegetation peppered with pylons, canals, locks, bridges and towpaths – mostly silent and still – a no-man’s land ripe for development”.

There are some interesting facts about businesses in the area and photographs.

Peter Marshall, who has photographed the Lea Valley over many years, has commented on the Fatwalk failure and possibilities at Cody Dock:

“…provide a wooden bascule bridge across the dock entrance to carry the Fatwalk across, which would join the existing section from beside Twelvetrees Bridge to a isolated section only currently accessible to those working on the neighbouring industrial estate. A short section along currently unused riverbank next to a recycling area could then extend the path to join up with the existing path and bridge south of the East India Dock Road (where there is also a riverside path completed around 20 years ago but never opened to the public with an entrance from Canning Town station) and allow walkers to reach the Thames at East India Dock and Trinity Buoy Wharf.”

“Dismaying and baffling” is how Rowan Moore in today’s Observer describes the “possible scrapping” of the Lea River Park, or Fatwalk, which would complete the Lea Valley Walk.

He questions Mayor Boris Johnson’s failure to act after “a few million in public money and five years of work have been spent getting it this far”.

Read the full piece here and see pictures here.

Diamond Geezer has written an excellent piece on the failure of the London Thames Gateway Development Corporation to build the Fatwalk.

The Fatwalk is the final section of the Lea Valley Walk which should follow the tidal Lea rather than the rather dull Limehouse Cut.

He rightly points out that the volunteer group at Cody Dock may have a plan to build the key bridge itself but it is reduced to raising money by appeals.

How about a donation from the LTGDC which has surplus funds?

It appears that the Mayor of London has cut the Lea Valley Walk out of the Olympic legacy.

Dave Hill has some thoughts about the towpath alongside the Olympic Park.

The U3A, University of the Third Age, has produced a film of its Olympic Year walk down the Lea Valley.

It gives a good overview and shows some of the latest changes in landscape including the Olympic sites at Waltham Abbey and in London.

Also shown is the new safe path under the Bow Flyover junction.