Last week, Beckett Rankine submitted a proposal that could help London achieve a modern cruise terminal within the heart of the city.
The central idea of the proposal is to redevelop the Greenwich passenger pier into a new river-bus and cruise ship terminal, improving accessibility for passengers from ship to shore and reducing cruise ship emissions in berth with shoreside power connectivity.
The challenge
Despite being an attractive destination for cruise ships, London lacks adequate cruise terminal facilities.
Small cruise ships (up to 158m long) can berth alongside HMS Belfast, but passengers must then cross the river via a small boat to be processed in a small terminal facility on Tower Pier.
Larger cruise ships (up to 226m long) can moor mid-stream to mooring buoys at Greenwich. A floating pontoon with a small terminal facility is secured to the ship, and then passengers must again take a small boat to shore.
In both cases, there is no shore power connectivity for the cruise ships; without it, cruise ships reportedly generate the equivalent emissions of 600 lorry engines while berthed.
Further afield, the London cruise market is served by better-equipped cruise terminals such as Tilbury, Dover and Southampton, each requiring lengthy coach or train transfers between the ship and the capital.
All of these existing options are poor for environmental sustainability and inconvenient for passengers, particularly those with reduced mobility or access needs, as well as for baggage handling.
Over the last two decades, multiple schemes for a modern cruise terminal in the city have been drawn up, but they have failed to gain traction due to high costs or environmental concerns over the absence of a shore power connection for the ships.
The proposed solution
In May 2024, Transport for London issued an invitation for Early Market Engagement seeking ideas for the redevelopment of Festival Pier and Greenwich Pier.
Beckett Rankine proposed that Greenwich Pier has the greatest potential for redevelopment, not least because it serves as the gateway to a World Heritage Site and is one of the oldest piers on the River Thames. We presented the idea of combining the pier with a modern cruise terminal facility, achieved by relocating the pier further upstream and incorporating a cruise ship berth.
The facility would need to accommodate ships of up to 230m long with a 7m draft. The depth off the existing Greenwich Pier is only 4-5m and unfortunately cannot be dredged for greater depth, due to the Greenwich foot tunnel’s shallow depth below the riverbed and nearby DLR tunnels to the west. However, the mid-stream mooring has a depth of 9m, and so the ships could be accommodated in the existing berth pocket.
For the berth itself, the concept adopted multiple floating pontoons moored behind berthing dolphins, which is an economical arrangement we used on a previous project for the Greenock cruise terminal in Scotland. As the location is outside of the tunnel exclusion zone, the new pier can be moored firmly to piles for greater stability.
The pontoons connect to a brow that would bring the cruise and river bus passengers seamlessly to land a little further upstream than the existing pier, though equally close to the Cutty Sark. The cruise ship passengers would then be processed in a lightweight terminal building built above the existing underground carpark, which could serve the terminal’s vehicle access needs.
A significant challenge for the scheme is obtaining an adequate grid connection for cruise ships in central London. To overcome this, we identified a few options for providing an 8MVA supply using a modular eHouse substation supplied by ABB, which would connect to a mobile cable management unit mounted on the pontoons. The shore power connectivity would mean cruise ships could turn off their generators and produce zero emissions while berthed.
This proposal was submitted to Transport for London on 2nd July 2024, featuring high-quality renders from Anthony Carlile Architects along with additional details on how the project might be funded.
Tim Beckett, Director, said,
“London is long overdue for a modern cruise terminal that can adequately serve the city’s cruise market. Our proposal sets out a realistic concept that maximises the Greenwich Pier redevelopment opportunity, informed by Beckett Rankine’s deep knowledge of the area, the necessary infrastructure, and the challenges of such a scheme. We hope that our proposal will help unlock London’s cruise terminal potential and pave the way for similar zero-emission cruise ship berths in cities around the world.”
