Work on London’s latest passenger pier has started on site. The Battersea Powerstation development at Nine Elms is to have a new pier to cater for Thames Clippers’ riverbus service. The pier will initially be a single berth facility although it has been designed to be extended later if demand develops.

The Nine Elms frontage is a very crowded stretch of the river; as well as the new pier there is also the Powerstation’s old coaling jetty which is being used for shipping out spoil from the Northern Line tube extension. Just downstream there is then Cringle Dock which ships out refuse in barges. Next there is Thames Tideway Tunnel’s Kirtling Street site which will shortly be shipping out tunnel spoil and imparting concrete tunnel lining segments.

So much maritime activity in a confined area required a rigorous Navigational Risk Assessment for the new pier to ensure that Thames Clippers could safely operate alongside the freight movements. In carrying out the NRA we found that we needed greater detail of the shipping movements so we set up an Automatic Identification System (AIS) base station to monitor the ship transponders. While theoretically only line of sight we have found that our station records data from as far upstream as Wandsworth Bridge and downstream as far as HMS Belfast. This wealth of data will be of invaluable use on a number of our other central London projects.

Battersea Powerstation’s pier started on site with the removal of some existing dolphins and the driving of two new piles. This work is being done by Red7 Marine using their jack-up barge Haven Seaseven.

The contract for the fabrication and installation of the pier pontoon and brow has been awarded separately to Interserve who have subcontracted the pontoon build to Burgess Marine. The pier is due to be completed in August.