Thames waterway plan
The plan has been developed in consultation with riverside local authorities, river user groups, businesses and landowners. It aims to achieve coordinated planning between councils on matters of river front development, and protecting and promoting access, transport and open spaces; protection of habitats and the environment for the future; more and better riverside leisure facilities such as moorings, toilets and tourism information, making the trip to the river a more enjoyable experience; plans to regenerate old industrial and working sites; and more cost efficient promotion of the river, boating and leisure to encourage more visitors and support local businesses. It will be implemented by the members of the RTA and progress will be reviewed annually.
The full plan, the summary of the consultation responses, and the summarised aspirations for the Thames are all available below. The plan was subject to a Strategic Sustainability Assessment. The consultation website is still available to show how the plan has developed as a result.
- The plan
- Supporting maps
- Aspiration maps
- The consultation website
- Strategic Sustainability Assessment
The plan
To make the plan easier to download we have split the Thames waterway plan document into sections and have provided both a high and low resolution version of the main document for those on slower internet connections
Full Documents
Thames Waterway Plan - High Resolution - PDF - 9.65 mb
Thames Waterway Plan - Low Resolution - PDF - 2.1 mb
Thames Waterway Plan Annual Review 2007 - 888 kb
Consultation Response Summary 2005 - PDF - 128 kb
Sections
Table of Contents and Section 1.0 - Introduction - PDF - 230 kb
3.0 - Underlying Principles - PDF - 251 kb
5.0 - Sustainable Development - PDF - 351 kb
6.0 - The River Thames - PDF - 37 kb
7.0 - Socio Economic Baseline - PDF - 695 kb
9.0 - Sports and Recreation - PDF - 785 kb
10.0 - Powered Boating - PDF - 930 kb
11.0 - Landscape - PDF - 540 kb
12.0 - Built Heritage - PDF - 341 kb
13.0 - Water quality and resources - PDF - 192 kb
14.0 - Climate Change - PDF - 229 kb
15.0 - Biodiversity and Fisheries - PDF - 753 kb
16.0 - Gateway Opportunities - PDF - 640 kb
17.0 - Education - PDF - 304 kb
18.0 - Service and Facilities - PDF - 609 kb
19.0 - Visitor Risk Management - PDF - 163 kb
20.0 - Targets, Monitoring and Review - PDF - 107 kb
Supporting maps
The following maps support each of the sections within the plan.
Map 1 - River Thames and its tributaries - PDF - 609 kb
Map 2 - Local Government boundaries - PDF - 557 kb
Map 3 - Population - PDF - 880 kb
Map 4 - Deprivation - PDF - 736 kb
Map 5 - Ethnicity - PDF - 799 kb
Map 6a - Tourism accessibility (road) - PDF - 691 kb
Map 6b - Tourism accessibility (rail) - PDF - 791 kb
Map 7 - Visitor attractions - PDF - 877 kb
Map 8 - Clubs and societies - PDF - 759 kb
Map 9 - Footpaths - PDF - 771 kb
Map 10 - Cycling - PDF - 705 kb
Map 11 - Boat hire - PDF - 633 kb
Map 12 - Geology - PDF - 977 kb
Map 13 - Landscape character - PDF - 1.3 mb
Map 14 - Landscape designations - PDF - 1.1 mb
Map 15 - Built heritage - PDF - 562 kb
Map 16 - Flood risk - PDF - 757 kb
Map 17 - Conservation sites and ecological sensitivity to low flows - PDF - 797 kb
Map 18 - Proximity of schools to the river - PDF - 589 kb
Aspiration maps
We have collected over 1000 observations, issues that need resolving and offers of improvement relating to the Thames. We have termed these 'aspirations' as they are aspirational rather than agreed and timetabled actions. The summarised maps showing the aspirations reach by reach are available here. Contact us for if you have any queries regarding the aspiration maps.
Full aspiration map document (all maps) - PDF - 4.1 mb
Aspiration cover, contents page and Maps 1 and 2 - PDF - 473 kb
Aspiration maps 3 - 6 - PDF - 701 kb
Aspiration maps 7 - 10 - PDF - 693 kb
Aspiration maps 11 - 14 - PDF - 359 kb
Aspiration maps 15 - 18 - PDF - 994 kb
Aspiration maps 19 - 22 - PDF - 961 kb
Consultation Website
The Thames Waterway Plan has undergone several periods of public consultation as the policies were refined and aspirations gathered. The consultation website contains the previous drafts of the Plan documents.
> View the consultation website
Strategic Sustainability Assessment
To ensure that the plan is sustainable, it has been subject to assessment throughout it's development. This means that the policies have been checked against environmental, economic and social criteria. A further SSA will be carried out when the River Thames Alliance has identified reponsibilities and a firm timetable for action.
SSA - Executive summary - PDF - 78 kb
SSA - Main Report - PDF - 442 kb
SSA - Appendix 1 - Sustainability Objectives - PDF - 160 kb
SSA - Appendix 2 - Policies, Plans and Programmes - PDF - 125 kb
SSA - Appendix 3 - Baseline - PDF - 396 kb
SSA - Appendix 4 - Scoping - PDF - 275 kb
SSA - Appendix 6 - Matrices - PDF - 580 kb
SSA Supporting maps
The following maps support the Strategic Sustainability Assessment.
Map 1 - Overview - PDF - 592 kb
Map 2 - Administrative context - PDF - 397 kb
Map 3 - Landscape designations - PDF - 421 kb
Map 4a - Landscape character overview- PDF - 133 kb
Map 4b - Landscape character zones 1-3 - PDF - 168 kb
Map 4c - Landscape character zones 4-6 - PDF - 177 kb
Map 5 - Built conservation and heritage - PDF - 213 kb
Map 6a - Designated biodiversity sites - PDF - 96 kb
Map 6b - Designated biodiversity sites - PDF - 108 kb
Map 7 - River corridor assessment - PDF - 154 kb
Map 8 - Fisheries - PDF - 137 kb
Map 9 - Environmental sensitivity - PDF - 98 kb
Map 10 - Water resource availablity- PDF - 110 kb
Map 11 - Flood risk - PDF - 144 kb
Map 12 - Bank protection - PDF - 119 kb
Map 13 - Chemical water quality - PDF - 226 kb
Map 14 - Biological water quality - PDF - 216 kb
Map 15 - Population - PDF - 235 kb
Map 16 - Ethnicity - PDF - 1.4 mb
Map 17 - Deprivation - PDF - 1.1 mb
Map 18a - Tourism accessibility (road) - PDF - 289 kb
Map 18b - Tourism accessibility (rail) - PDF - 105 kb
Map 19a - Proximity to train stations (upper) - PDF - 281 kb
Map 19b - Proximity to train stations (lower) - PDF - 310 kb
Map 20 - Visitor attractions - PDF - 146 kb
Map 21a - Clubs and societies (upper) - PDF - 90 kb
Map 21b - Clubs and societies (lower) - PDF - 64 kb
Map 22 - Powered boat traffic - PDF - 109 kb
Map 23 - Unpowered boat traffic - PDF - 110kb
Map 24 - Footpaths - PDF - 94kb
View the Thames waterway plan
There are several versions of the plan available to download - choose one which suits your connection speed:
Thames Waterway Plan - High Resolution - PDF - 9.65 mb
Thames Waterway Plan - Low Resolution - PDF - 2.1 mb
These files may take a while to download depending on your connection speed. You may prefer to download the plan by sections.
To save the plan to your computer, right-click on the file you would like to save and choose save target as.
You will need Adobe Acrobat software to view the plan - It is free and available from www.adobe.com
Contact us
If you experience any problems in downloading any of the files on this page contact the webmaster. If you would like to speak to anyone regarding the content of the plan or the Alliance then choose an appropriate contact from our contact page