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After extensive planning applications, the Mayor of London has
given approval for an ambitious new cruise terminal in time for the 2012 Olympic
Games.
 The
facility, to be built at Enderby Wharf in Greenwich, is some 20 miles closer
into London than the out-of-town cruise terminal at Tilbury and within walking
distance of popular sites including the Maritime
Museum and the Cutty Sark clipper ship.
Ships can already moor at Greenwich, and the smallest vessels can fit upstream
at Tower Bridge, in the heart of the City, but there's no terminal or berth at
either.
The cruise terminal will be part of a refurbishment of the whole area around
Enderby House, a protected historic building. The overall development will
include 770 homes, a 251-room hotel, a new street and a public square with
gardens and is expected to take four or five years to build, but the cruise
terminal is earmarked as the first phase. Work will start at the end of this
year and the terminal is expected to be ready, a spokesman for developer West
Properties told Cruise Critic, for the Olympic Games next summer, accommodating
ships up to 240m long (as an example, a ship about the length of Oceania's new
66,000-ton Marina).
The terminal will without doubt boost cruise tourism to London, but whether
there will be demand for moorings for ships for the Olympics is another matter.
Only one cruise ship, Peter Deilmann's Deutschland, has so far been confirmed as
a floating hotel and will be berthed in West India Docks, closer to the Olympic
stadium. And luxury line SeaDream Yacht Club last week cancelled its summer 2012
Baltic and northern Europe program, blaming the situation partly on failing to
secure a charter for the Games. |
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