Poplar & Limehouse MP Jim Fitzpatrick

New Thames crossing needed for east London, MP Jim Fitzpatrick urges

Mike Brooke Wednesday, May 30, 2012
7:00 AM

Renewed calls are being made in Parliament for a new Thames river crossing for east London which an MP said was now facing a traffic gridlock crisis.

Poplar & Limehouse MP Jim Fitzpatrick has been pressing the Government and Mayor of London to speed up plans for additional crossings east of Tower Bridge.

He told a Commons debate last Thursday: “We are desperate for another crossing—at least one.

“The Government and the Mayor are committed to two, but we want to see them as quickly as possible.

“The area east of Tower Bridge now has almost half London’s population, with only four crossings.”

The other half west of Tower Bridge, he pointed out, had 20.

“We need extra crossings—or else east London will gridlock,” he warned. “The ‘driver’ for this great capital for the next generation or two will be stalled.”

The last major traffic river crossing proposed in east London was Beckton to Thamesmead, which could have carried an expanded A406 North-South Circular route—but that was scrapped by Boris Johnson in 2008 as too costly. An alternative was later proposed between West Silvertown and North Greenwich, but still hasn’t got off the drawing board.