On Tue, 27 Jul 2010 21:47:18 +0100, Tom Anderson
wrote:
On Tue, 27 Jul 2010, Bruce wrote:

there is easily accessible public open space which leads from the
village to the new river feature.

The game's afoot!

I'm unlikely to be flying through Heathrow for a couple of months, but
next time i do, i'll see if i can stop by.


Don't bother. I took a look yesterday and, while you can get fairly
close to one of the control structures, the wide channel section is
not accessible. There's a 1.8m chain link fence that keeps you away.
Since you are just outside the Heathrow security boundary, and
probably under surveillance, finding a way under/over/through the
fence is probably inadvisable. ;-)

Although you can get tantalisingly close, you really need to be
looking down into the channel to see what the bed is made of. I took
a couple of photos but the oblique angle rendered them useless.

The only interesting thing I discovered was that the channel, wide
though it is, is completely covered by bird netting. Intriguing!

If you still decide to go, there is on-street parking directly
opposite the gate into the small area of parkland. You need to enter
Longford from the west (A3044) end as the route through the village
from the London end is for buses only. You can exit this way in a car
but not enter. You need to stop at the first pay and display machine
to buy a ticket before driving on to where you want to park, because
there are only two machines in Longford and they are a long way apart.
Parking costs 50p per 20 minutes, maximum 2 hours.