Online meeting of the River Port Cities Working Group: Port of London and Royal Docks

Continuing the work done during our in-person meeting with the Port of Seville (Spain) in March, we discussed more in depth the issues of safely sharing waterways in river port cities and how to organize the governance around it. The Port of Seville is managing the Guadalquivir River from the city center of Sevilla, and down to the sea. Flowing through different towns and contexts, many conflicts arise along the river. In order to inspire and spark reflection, we invited Siân Foster, Director of Corporate Affairs at the Port of London Authority and Ashley Russel Project Manager at the Royal Docks Team to present the case of London and the Thames (United Kingdom).

Some highlights of the presentations:

• The variety and high number of events taking place on the Thames and within the Royal Docks, calling for a strong collaboration between all stakeholders
• The growing citizen interest in activities on and around water
• The relevance of ambitious strategy documents to guide daily work
• The specificities of both organizations (financial, governance, goals)

Thank you again to both speakers for their brilliant presentations and to the AIVP members who participated, for their engagement during the session.

A summary of the meeting is available for AIVP members.
Our next meeting will take place in October on the topic of cruise integration in river cities.

Contact Noémi Mené (nmene@aivp.org), coordinator of the Working Group for more information on our work.