'Olympics' mooring sites

INFORMATION has been released that some of the visitor mooring locations for the Olympics next year  will be on the London waterways, Lee Navigation and Docklands.

Most of the moorings will be simple towpath moorings, many without facilities and will include Paddington, Little Venice, Camden, King's Cross, Islington, Mile End Park, Victoria Park and Hackney Marshes on the  Lee.

Docklands

There will also be both unserviced and serviced berths in the Millwall Docks in Docklands, accessed from the River Thames via West India Lock.

As previously reported in narrowboatworld, boaters will be able to browse, book and pay for a mooring online using British Waterways web-based booking system, that will coincide with tickets for the games themselves, but will not be available together as first advertised.

Contacted London moorers

British Waterways Marketing Director, Simon Salem has  contacted the people with moorings in the city, explaining:

'Clearly no-one with an existing home mooring in central London needs to book a berth, but we do envisage the need for some exceptional restrictions, some of which may affect you. For boaters wishing to continuously cruise through London we hope to be able to give plenty of notice to help plan journeys in 2012, or indeed, book a berth.

While the details of these plans are provisional, we felt it important to share our early thoughts with you. There is still plenty of time for discussion of much associated detail before 2012, and a British Waterways project manager will be talking with boating customers, including: businesses, boaters with home moorings, community and charity boats, continuous cruisers, cruising clubs and private mooring operators'.

There is no mention as to whether the bookings will be  by the tendering system, or if this has now been scrapped.