The Olympic torch will arrive in the Lea Valley on Saturday 7 July.

It will be seen in Waltham Abbey’s Sun Street before being taken to the white water centre where it will descend down the rapids.

The following day the torch will be in Luton.

The flame will be in the lower Lea Valley on Tuesday 21 July when it passes Bow Church. The building will be open all day from 11am to 3pm. Our Lady & St Catherine of Siena Church opposite has already bought extra candles to be ready for the huge numbers dropping in on that day and during the Games.

The towpath alongside the Olympic Park closed on Monday evening 2 July.

The Lea Valley Walk now ‘ends’ at the site of the Matchbox Toy factory below Homerton and will not continue south until after the Olympics.

The diversion from Marshgate Bridge to Bow Bridge is so long that it is hardly worth bothering with.

I walked down the towpath during the last daylight hours. It was a grey afternoon but still interesting.

The road surface on the Hackney Wick Bridge has been renewed. There is anew bridge downstream of Hackney Wick.

The greatest surprise is to find staff on duty at the Old Ford lock keeper’s office and the water clean.

But the towpath between Old Ford and Bow Flyover is much as it has been in recent times with plenty of blackberry blossom and green fruit.

Ripe blackberries should be ready for the path’s opening in the autumn.

Work to complete the cycling link between Luton and Harpenden along the Lea Valley Walk starts this July.

The footpath here is now part of National Cycle Route 6 pioneered by Sustrans and backed by the Big Lottery Fund.

There is expected to be a slight realignment of the Walk at East Hyde but the cycleway and Walk will separate at Batford.

Sustrans has already installed the bridge over Lower Harpenden Road.

The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall will visit Three Mills on Wednesday 13 June.

They will go to the Mill House to meet those involved in the restoration. The Royal couple will also visit the next door studios where the London 2012 Opening and Closing ceremonies are being planned and rehearsed.

One of the Water Chariots, a waterbus, will be named.

A meeting follows with representatives of the new Canal & River Trust (British Waterways) to discuss the regeneration of the waterways network as a result of Olympic legacy.

The Lea Valley Walk is to be partly closed during the Olympic Games.

The towpath between Arena Field, just north of Hackney Wick, and the Bow Flyover closes from Tuesday 3 July until Monday 10 September.

However, it will be possible to use the new stretch of path under the dangerous Bow road junction and walk south towards Three Mills.

My comment on the failure of the London Thames Gateway Development Corporation to start work on the promised Lea Valley Walk extension, or ‘Fatwalk’ to use the working title, appears in today’s Financial Times.

In the letter I point out that this is one of the Mayor’s Great Spaces which was due to open in Olympic year.

I should add that the chance of a through route alongside the tidal Lea soon rests with the very exciting Cody Dock project.

Lance Forman of smoked salmon factory fame is reported to be planning a “temporary beach club and riviera” complete with moored Sunseeker yachts on Fish Island.

See The Independent.

After the failure of the £15m London Thames Gateway Development Corporation scheme to open up Bow Creek with a riverside path there comes very surprising news

There is a plan to span a blockage just south of Three Mills this summer.

A wide path already runs south along the east side of the tidal Lea until it hits Cody Dock. This was built in 1870 for the Imperial Gas Company which needed to receive coal by barge.

Recently Simon Myers came up Bow Creek by boat and discovered the derelict dock. He has set up the Gasworks Dock Partnership charity which is redeveloping the site for live/work units and ship repairing.

Best of all he plans to have a wooden bascule bridge in operation this year to carry the Lea Valley Walk over the dock and allow it to continue to Trinity Buoy Wharf and East India Dock.

For this to happen £140,252 is needed by Wednesday 6 June -the day after the Jubilee weekend.

£56,418 has been raised since the appeal was launched last month.

Billy Bragg, whose grandfather worked in the dock, and John Suchet are backing the plan.

Stephen Timms MP has visited and described the project as “a great initiative”.

Details can be found on the Cody Dock website.

Surface-to-air missiles could be deployed at two Lea Valley sites during the Olympics says the Ministry of Defence.

The Bow Quarter residential block, once Brant & May, was revealed as one site yesterday.

The other is the William Girling Reservoir which lies on the east side of the Lea Valley Walk between Ponders End and Tottenham Marshes.

These potential locations for ground-based air defence systems will be part of a major exercise in which security preparations are being tested from May 2 to 10.

The residential building in Bow chosen by the Ministry of Defence to have missiles on the roof during the Olympics is a former match factory.

The old Bryant & May works just to the west of the River Lea is a landmark from the Lea Valley Walk, the Greenway and the Olympic Park.

Wood for the match production was brought up the river.

The site is famous for the 1888 Match Girls Strike which highlighted very dangerous working conditions. Highly toxic phosphors caused some workers to glow in the dark according to reports.

The present building dates from 1911 and produced matches until 1979.