Woolwich Ferry to get two new boats in multi-million-pound upgrade

The Woolwich Ferry in east London
Mark Blunden @_MarkBlunden21 November 2017

The Woolwich Ferry is getting a multi-million-pound upgrade with two new vessels coming into service next year.

They are being built in Poland and will be floated hundreds of miles over the Baltic and North Seas before they begin plying the Thames next year.

One of the new ferries, which cost £10 million each, will be named Dame Vera Lynn, in honour of the 100-year-old East Ham-born singer and Second World War forces sweetheart.

The other will be named Ben Woollacott, after the 19-year-old Woolwich Ferry deckhand who was dragged to his death in August 2011 while mooring ropes were being untied.

The free ferry service, which carries vehicles and passengers, has run since 1889 and the current boats have operated since the Sixties.

Divers will scour the riverbed for unexploded Second World War ordnance before the new ferries begin operating. Transport for London is sending specialists into the Thames to check the mud for hidden explosives because of the vast numbers of bombs dropped on the docks in the war.

They will examine eight sites over three weeks from today at the spots where the terminals are being rebuilt to accommodate the modern ferries.

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