Welcome from Matt Carpen, Managing Director at Barking Riverside Ltd

It has been another busy few months here at Barking Riverside.

The Spring/Summer marked the opening of two significant pieces of infrastructure for Barking Riverside. On 25 April 2022, we were delighted to launch Uber Boat by Thames Clippers river bus services from the brand new Barking Riverside pier. The reaction to this new piece of infrastructure has been phenomenal, with 4,000 passengers using the Barking Riverside pier in the Platinum Jubilee weekend alone.

We hosted a series of launch events, including a river cruise for 180 pupils from Barking & Dagenham schools; a reception cruise for partners and stakeholders jointly hosted by Uber Boat by Thames Clippers and by BRL on our riverfront; and a Pier Community Day for residents to enjoy a day of river-inspired activities.

July also saw the opening of the Barking Riverside Overground station, which officially commenced rail services on Monday 18 July 2022. We have been working closely with our partners, L&Q, the Greater London Authority and Transport for London, to deliver this essential new transport link months ahead of schedule. This is a crucial milestone that will have a huge impact on residents, helping them to commute more quickly and connect with the city. It will also allow more people to visit us, putting Barking Riverside on the most famous map in the world and enabling them to find out why Barking Riverside is a place like no other. I am personally extremely proud of my team at Barking Riverside and our partners for bringing this facility to fruition.

Further on in our newsletter, you will see that it is not just the Infrastructure team that has been busy this quarter. Our Planning, Placemaking and Communications teams have had a hugely successful few months for awards, achieving industry recognition across a variety of projects - from the partnership work done on The Wilds community space to our first brand awareness campaign.

Looking ahead, there is plenty coming over the Summer. A new food and drink pop-up is open on the Barking Riverside foreshore across July and August. This is encouraging residents and visitors to make use of the fantastic green space on their doorstep, and will draw Londoners from further afield to the area for the first time.

Our award-winning social impact framework, Thames Futures, is producing an ‘impact report’, assessing the effect of the project over the last two years. It will explore how residents’ priorities have changed since the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a great opportunity to highlight the important work Thames Futures has been conducting, and will demonstrate BRL’s ongoing commitment to resident-led change.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our partners, colleagues and friends for their continued support. We look forward to seeing many of you in person at our events in the coming few months.