Better access to, from and within Thamesmead

Featured in the Future Transport London Newsletter January 2026

Funding was announced in the Autumn Budget for the £1.7 bn. 3-km DLR extension to Thamesmead. The scheme includes one new station at Beckton Riverside (to serve new housing); another in Thamesmead Town Centre (also to serve new housing). These stations will be linked by twin tunnels under the river. The elevated DLR station at Thamesmead is explicitly designed for further extension and, in response to the most recent consultation, FTL suggested how the DLR might eventually serve several other parts of Thamesmead and terminate at Abbey Wood station.

A ‘turnback’ (reversing) facility will be created at Royal Victoria or (FTL’s preference) Canning Town, so that higher frequencies can be operated between there and Beckton/Thamesmead with relatively few extra trains.  The existing interchanges at Custom House (with the Elizabeth line) and Canning Town (with the Jubilee line and other branches of the DLR) will enable residents of Thamesmead near a DLR station to reach many areas in and across London much more quickly than now via bus to Woolwich or Abbey Wood.

TfL are currently consulting on the construction of a bus/cycle/pedestrian-only shortcut linking West Thamesmead with Thamesmead Town Centre, to encourage the use of sustainable modes: that journey currently requires a long diversion via dual carriageways. The DLR station, when opened, will also benefit from more direct access to/from West Thamesmead via sustainable modes.

Murky Depths, in a recent article, suggest that the funding for the under-river DLR tunnel would be better spent on a tram/light rail system linking Thamesmead with North Greenwich via Woolwich and Charlton Riverside. That idea is not new! The Greenwich Waterfront Transit (GWT) scheme would have done precisely that, and its alignment was designed for bus, trolleybus or tram technology but GWT and similar schemes were cancelled by Boris Johnson when he was Mayor of London.

However, Murky Depths do NOT provide answers to any of the following questions:

·       Where would the tram/light rail depot be located (it cannot be remote from the tram/light rail route itself)?

·       What alignment would the tram/light rail scheme follow between Thamesmead and North Greenwich (the A206 is currently undergoing major works to provide a segregated cycling superhighway, thereby precluding a segregated tram route)?

·       A tram/light rail scheme south of the river would not serve the new housing development at Beckton Riverside.

·       How do the net annual costs of operating a tram/light rail scheme between Thamesmead and North Greenwich compare with the net annual costs of operating the 3-km DLR extension to/from Thamesmead?

·       How would journey times, e.g., to/from key places in into Central London from the new housing in Thamesmead via the tram/light rail scheme compare with via the DLR extension?

·       What modal shift to sustainable transport would the tram/light rail scheme bring, compared with what the DLR extension will bring?                                            

Neil Roth