Up the creek
Sir: The Greater London Council's plan to link the Thames embankment with Ringway One—described as 'monstrous' by Mr Stephen Gardiner (27 December)—makes nonsense of their proposals to make imaginative use of the river. A barrier of traffic—most of it having no business in Cen- tral London—would separate the canital from the north bank of its river somewhere between Whistler's Reach and the Pool of London.
The possibility of a permanently full, clean Thames, created by a barrage downstream. makes Chelsea Reach Chevne Walk on one bank, Battersea Park on the other—the perfect setting for a revival of riverside pleasures. In the last century. Thomas Faulkner, the Chelsea historian. wrote that the planned embankment would provide 'a coup d'oeil that would not then be surpassed in any city of Europe.' During re- cent years. Londoners have been largely deprived of this promenade by indu trial and commuter traffic. To link it with Ringway One would make this state of affairs irrevocable.
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