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Long Reach sewage treatment works

London water infrastructureSewage treatment plants in the United KingdomThames Water

The Long Reach sewage treatment works is located in Dartford, Kent adjacent to the River Thames. It treats the sewage from a population of 837,000 in a catchment area of 518 km2 (200 sq mi) in south and south east London and west Kent. The treatment capacity of the works is 346 million litres per day (Ml/d).

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Long Reach sewage treatment works (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

Long Reach sewage treatment works
Marsh Street,

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N 51.4675 ° E 0.235 °
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Long Reach Sewage Treatment Works

Marsh Street
DA1 5UX , The Bridge
England, United Kingdom
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River Darent
River Darent

The Darent is a Kentish tributary of the River Thames and takes the waters of the River Cray as a tributary in the tidal portion of the Darent near Crayford, as illustrated by the adjacent photograph, snapped at high tide. 'Darenth' is frequently found in the spelling of the river's name in older books and maps, Bartholomew's "Canal's and River of England" being one example. Bartholomew's Gazetteer (1954) demonstrates that Darent means "clear water" and separately explains the other name. Considering the River Darent runs on a bed of chalk and its springs rise through chalk, this is not surprising. The original purity of the water was a major reason for the development of paper and pharmaceuticals in the area. Darenth Parish (through which the river flows) derives from a Celtic phrase 'stream where oak-trees grow' (Irish: "dair" = 'oak-tree', "abha" = river ) (compare e.g."Derwent"). The landscapes of the valley were painted in a visionary manner by the Victorian artist Samuel Palmer during the mid 1800s. Fed by springs from the greensand hills south of Westerham in Kent and below Limpsfield Chart in Surrey it flows 21 miles (34 km) east then north by Otford and Shoreham, past the castle and the ruined Roman villa at Lullingstone, then by Eynsford, Farningham, Horton Kirby, South Darenth, Sutton-at-Hone, Darenth, and eventually to Dartford whence it proceeds a final two miles as a tidal estuary until it drops into the Thames at Long Reach.North of Dartford the Darent is tidal and, just before entering the Thames, receives the waters of the River Cray at Dartford & Crayford Marshes where the rivers form administrative boundaries between Greater London and Kent, (specifically, the London Borough of Bexley and the Kentish borough of Dartford). The Darent enters Thames Long Reach to the East of Crayford Ness.Kent County Council has signposted a 19-mile (31 km) walking route along the Darent between the Greensand Hills above Sevenoaks and the Thames and named it the Darent Valley Path. The route receives no obvious attention from councils or 'focus' groups although all or part is used by joggers, cyclists, walkers, dog walkers and curious adventurers, availing themselves of the Darent Valley Path to access or view the river's amenities, such as they are. This lack of attention is being addressed in the tidal section by a group of concerned locals, the "Friends of Dartford and Crayford Creeks". As of mid-2016 a trust is being formed to promote regeneration and give formal recognition to the protection of this valuable public amenity.

Fantaseas

Fantaseas was a chain of indoor waterparks situated in the United Kingdom that opened in the late 1980s, but due to various technical and financial difficulties closed in the mid-nineties. The first was opened in Autumn 1989 on the outskirts of Dartford in Kent. The building contained six water slides, a lazy river, wave pool, an outdoor heated lagoon as well as a cafe and gaming video arcade. Visible on the skyline from the nearby M25 motorway the building dominated the local landscape and became quite an icon of the town. A second opened in August 1990 in Chingford, London, and featured many of the same rides as the Dartford park, albeit in a different configuration. The Chingford park was considered by some to be 'tamer' than its Dartford counterpart, but still contained many of the same styles of water slides as its sister site. In the summer of 1992, it was found the foundations of the Dartford site were inadequate to support the building. It's a common myth around the area that the sole reason the Dartford site was shut down was because of this issue, this is in fact untrue as the main reason was financial. Many considered the parks to be fads and typical of the grandiose get-rich-quick schemes of the time. In reality, the company encountered significant financial difficulties with a lack of attendance especially outside of the school holiday seasons. There were also several serious accidents at the Chingford park which tarnished the reputation of the company. This, coupled with high maintenance costs, built up debts of over £6 million in an eighteen-month period. Despite the Dartford site being fairly profitable for the company (including the planned repairs of its foundations) it still wasn't enough to save the waterpark and both sites were eventually shut down. The Chingford site re-opened briefly as ‘Hydropark’ before closing permanently. The site laid derelict for a decade before Waltham Forest Council built a new indoor pool, Larkswood Leisure Centre, on the site, which is now shared with Nuffield Health Fitness & Wellbeing Gym. The Dartford site also lay dormant for almost a decade, but remained in remarkable condition and was guarded by security with scheduled checks on the water pumps and other parts. Its fate was sealed in the early 2000s, when the buildings were demolished. The site was used as a refuse dump and became derelict, with plans to turn it into housing. The residential development of 156 homes was completed in 2016.Because Fantaseas shut down in 1992, images were on film and as such pictures of the sites are very rare, however recently on Facebook and other image sites people have started to upload scans of the Dartford site including flyers and even some pictures of the site during construction. A brief clip from Thames News dating back to 1988 covers redevelopment plans for Dartford at the time and shows the original concept for the waterpark, it was somewhat larger with the building, slides and layout of the complex being quite different to the final product which would open a year later, at this point it was simply known as “Water World”.