Lee Valley - new facility

[Proper Job]

The new Olympic canoe course open and it looks to be right next to the river?

 

BBC link

[pearley]

Complete waste of money. There is a perfectly good olympic style canoeing course by Holme Lock on the Trent near Nottingham.

 

New course is right by the Lee but whether you'll be allowed to moor near it is another matter.

[Peter Reed]

That looks like great fun.

[greywolf]

you would never get a narrowboat down there! Dig it out a bit more and it might make a good marina in the future.It is a lot of money for a minority sport.

[P R]

Looks expensive! Is all the money being spent in the Lee Valley going to leave a lasting benifit for the locals? (local boaters?)

[cloggy]

Looks expensive! Is all the money being spent in the Lee Valley going to leave a lasting benifit for the locals? (local boaters?)

Simple answer is no.

Having lived in the area for the last 20 odd years i dont now anyone who canoe's locally.

 

At the moment you can moor next to it but this is where i got my boat broken into and i now of at least 2 boats that have been torched by vandals in the last few years.

Edited December 9, 2010 by cloggy

[Barry]

Complete waste of money. There is a perfectly good olympic style canoeing course by Holme Lock on the Trent near Nottingham.

 

New course is right by the Lee but whether you'll be allowed to moor near it is another matter.

 

The trouble with Holme Pierepoint is that a high number of users get stomach upsets afterwards

[WJM]

The Holme Pierepoint stomach upset is an urban myth. I canoe there a lot and never get any belly upset.

 

The big Olympic disgrace is the Rowing / Sprint Canoeing course. Instead of upgrading the publicly owned National Watersports Centre in Nottingham, the Olympic funding is being ploughed into a privately owned regatta course in Windsor. After the games the course and all it's state funded infrastructure reverts to the private ownership of a local 'public' school - disgusting. The school in question pretend that they make the facility available for organised public events but the truth is that they do not.

 

And as if that isn't enough insult, the National Watersports Centre is under threat of closure!

 

----------------------------------------------------

 

I forgot to mention another 'disgrace' - the Holme Pierepoint Slalom course takes it's water directly from the Trent - a fully ecological, green and natural source. This new course is fed entirely with electrically pumped water. Apart from the lack of green credentials, history also shows that many of these artificially pumped courses end up being abandoned after the event due to the massive cost of running the pumps.

Edited December 9, 2010 by WJM

[FadeToScarlet]

The Holme Pierepoint stomach upset is an urban myth. I canoe there a lot and never get any belly upset.

 

But it is a wind tunnel cunningly disguised as a 2k lake...

 

The big Olympic disgrace is the Rowing / Sprint Canoeing course. Instead of upgrading the publicly owned National Watersports Centre in Nottingham, the Olympic funding is bring ploughed into a privately owned regatta course in Windsor. After the games the course and all it's state funded infrastructure reverts to the private ownership of a local 'public' school - disgusting. The school in question pretend that they make the facility available for organised public events but the truth is that they do not.

 

And as if that isn't enough insult, the National Watersports Centre is under threat of closure!

 

Not completely true- I can think of several public events- Wallingford Regatta, Metropolitan Regatta, Marlow regatta- on the lake. In fact, there's a list at http://www.dorneylake.co.uk/calendar.html.

[WJM]

Holme Pierepoint has already been good enough for several world championships in many sports.

 

I have first hand experience of the availability of the private lake in Windsor- mostly they dont wanna know - and when they do they want a commercial return on their state funded facility!

[Barry]

The Holme Pierepoint stomach upset is an urban myth. I canoe there a lot and never get any belly upset.

 

 

 

It is not an urban myth - I know a a group of people who train there regularly and sure enough every time they go several of them will have stomach trouble afterwards.

 

You may have a cast iron constitution but that doesn't mean to say that because it doesn't affect you it can't affect anyone else

[magpie patrick]

Complete waste of money. There is a perfectly good olympic style canoeing course by Holme Lock on the Trent near Nottingham.

 

 

Now, as a northerner, I'd be the first to complain if it was said "but there's a good facility in London" so I don't reeaaally think that's fair

 

Cardiff (where I used to live, but not where I'm from) were sad to lose the Commonwealth games standard pool, 50 yards long

[Lady Muck]

Holme Pierepoint has already been good enough for several world championships in many sports.

 

I have first hand experience of the availability of the private lake in Windsor- mostly they dont wanna know - and when they do they want a commercial return on their state funded facility!

 

When we moored near there in the summer we had first hand experience of watching the hooray henries using the perimeter road as a race track for their sports cars!