From freight to tourism to commuting: can the Thames rise again?

The Thames Vision project wants London's great waterway to be a bustling enterprise zone again - but can the waterfront property developers be kept at bay

The first day Chris Healy came to see the Thames, he was so excited he almost killed his father. Aged five, he was helping pump air down to Healy senior, a Port of London Authority diver - until he abandoned the wheel to see what all the activity on the river was about.

Fifty years later, Healy's patrol boat is passing a safer-looking dive operation, surveying the riverbed to build London's super sewer. "It's all changed dramatically," he says. "But the river changes every hour. From the height of summer and top of the tide it's totally different. You've not seen London until you've seen it from the river."