It took eight years to build and was inspired by the taps on its designer’s gas cooker. Now staff at the Thames Barrier are marking 40 years of protecting London from devastating floods.
Queen Elizabeth II performed the opening ceremony on May 8, 1984, and since then the barrier’s ten giant steel gates have closed 221 times to stop the Thames from flooding.
The Environment Agency, which operates the barrier, believes that it will last for another 40 years, but has already started planning for a future of rising sea levels and more surge tides.
Wednesday’s anniversary is the final day in the job for the barrier’s boss, Andy Batchelor, who steps down after 25 years in the role. His whole career has been linked with the barrier, having started his first job in construction building the associated flood defences downstream.
Batchelor, who joined the barrier team the day Elizabeth opened it, said he was “immensely proud of the protection it has provided London for the past 40 years and will continue to provide for years to come”.
The Thames Barrier came about after the devastating floods of 1953 in which 300 people died. A report by Sir Hermann Bondi, published in 1977, concluded that a flood barrier should be built near Woolwich and banks raised downstream.
The Greater London Council appointed Rendel, Palmer & Tritton to design the barrier and the firm’s designer, Charles Draper, came up with the idea of “rising sector gates” after studying the taps on his cooker.
Construction on the site, between Charlton and Silvertown, took eight years and cost £535 million – about £2.4 billion in today’s money. It was completed and became operational in 1982. Today a hundred people work at the site, with the Charlton control room staffed 24 hours a day.
The Environment Agency said the barrier’s “finest hour” came in the storms during the winter of 2013-14 when the barrier had to deal with its highest tide. It was closed 50 times in 13 weeks and no property in London was flooded.
In 1984 the barrier was expected to last until 2030, but the agency says the “excellent design and build” means it can stay in use until at least 2070, when rising sea levels mean its protection will decrease over time.
The agency has already started to plan for a replacement, however, and has committed itself to agreeing an “end-of-the century” option by 2040.
Those options include updating the existing barrier or adding a second set of gates there, or building new barriers at Dartford or Gravesend.
“The Environment Agency is hugely proud of the protection provided by the Thames Barrier, which has defended London for more than 40 years and continues to do so now and into the future,” said Caroline Douglass, the executive director for flood and coastal risk management.
“Alongside the invaluable role of the barrier, the approach set out in our Thames Estuary 2100 plan ensures we and our partners take the steps required between now and the end of the century to bolster the capital’s resilience to climate change and enable it to continue to thrive, by effectively managing flood risk from rivers and the sea in London.”
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