Crane River Park's Hounslow Bottleneck

11.45.01am BST (GMT +0100) Tue 12th Aug 2008

Vincent Cable, MP, has intervened with Hounslow Council and British Land, the owners of Feltham Marshalling Yards, to try to unlock a difficult land ownership issue which stands in the way of the ambitious Crane Riverside Metropolitan Park.

The park is already actively used in Twickenham and Heathfield but to complete the walkways and cycleways requires action to open up the green spaces in the Hounslow stretch of the river on the land which used to be marshalling yards.

Vincent Cable said: "the River Crane valley is a great but underused area of nature. Residents of Twickenham already use Kneller Gardens and Crane Park and, while I would like to see the Duke of Northumberland River cleaned up and made more accessible, the Richmond borough stretch of the river is already a functioning park. The problem is that the Hounslow stretch of the river is virtually inaccessible but also contains some of the most valuable nature reserve. Hounslow council is committed in principle to working with Richmond to support the park but seems unable to sort out the legal issues surrounding ownership of the marshalling yards area. I have asked the chief executive of Hounslow to take a lead and am working with the Twickenham based environmental action group, FORCE, whose drive and vision has got the Crane Park concept as far as it has.