Fulham crowd ‘ferries’ spark anger

FULHAM Football Club have been urged to abandon plans to build a pier on the Thames that could cause major disruption to the route of the The Boat Race.

The Premier League club’s proposal to offer a boat service to its reconstructed Riverside Stand would hurt thousands of river-users from sailing clubs, youth clubs and schools, campaigners have said.

Ahead of today’s historic Boat Race on a route that passes Fulham’s Craven Cottage stadium, the head of rowing’s ruling body said the plan could inflict serious damage on the sport.

Mark Davies, chair of British Rowing, believes the arrival of passenger ferries docking and turning at the ground would make it very difficult for anyone to sail on the Thames.

‘That stretch of water will become pretty well unusable,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure people understand just how many people use that course, from all over the country. Ignore the Boat Race for a moment. These are clubs from all over the country. All sorts of people, all sorts of ages, schools up to veterans. And they’re all using that as their main rowing course.

‘Major events take place but it’s also the major training venue. It’s [like] Wembley and St ww Park. Imagine if somebody said, “Let’s put an Underground station on the Nursery Ground at Lord’s, so that we can improve transport links for the sake of a commercial organisation”. There’s no chance that anybody would accept it.’

The Mail on Sunday understands that Fulham is pressing ahead with plans to introduce a passenger boat service to its £80million new stand, which will increase the stadium capacity from 25,700 to 29,600.

Designs for the new development, which is due to open this year, have shown it to include restaurants, a hotel, riverside market and meeting and events spaces.

Fulham were approached for comment. When Fleur Anderson, the Labour MP of Putney, raised the issue in Parliament last April, the club said: ‘Fulham’s design would create substantial and obvious benefits to the local community. Fulham will continue to liaise with all relevant stakeholders as it moves forward.’