Milnes said: "We can't say water has had the success of some of the other things connected with the Olympics.
"There were several problems: one was that there were no large companies, like DB Schenker, working on the waterways that were prepared to take a punt on providing the necessary equipment [such as barges].
"If that equipment had been available we could have done things a lot better and a lot quicker.
"The fact of the matter was, consultants had to scratch around lots of different agencies to get the money to build the lock, and all the time, construction for the Olympics was under way.
"But we are hopeful that now barges are going in and out of the site, we will be able to build something that is used for the fitout stage and for legacy [post Olympic] use."
Christopher Garnett, board member of the ODA, added: "The ODA put £5m (US$8.2m) into the building of Three Mills Lock and £6m into dredging the river, so we put more than seed funding in.
"The extent to which it now gets picked up is going to come down to industry suppliers." |
