The Illuminated River project is a great example of the type of high-quality infrastructure that capital cities deploy to showcase their unique urban scenery. It adds impact to the visitor experience and instills a sense of pride for locals and the many commuters that cross London bridges to get to work every day. It draws people to places along the river that would otherwise be overlooked, increasing footfall and dwell time, which are essential to our tourism and leisure trade.
While I was Strategic Projects Director at the Tower of London, I met with the Illuminated River team in 2017-18 to consult on their draft planning application, particularly the plans for lighting Tower Bridge and the impact on the Tower's setting. It struck me at the time that the team had to submit a separate planning application to every borough on both sides of the river, there was no one 'river' representation within the planning system, and how inefficient and fractured this was, and still is.
This lightbulb moment was one of the things I have carried forward to my current work on the Thames, and one of the reasons why we initiated the Joint Thames Strategy with our partners. We hope to get closer to creating a place for holistic thinking within the planning process across the Thames to treat the river like the high-quality capital city asset that it is, while we ramp up our thinking on protecting communities from the flood risk. You can find out more about the Joint Thames Strategy in my post here.