| Tower Pier | |
| Locale: | River Thames, London, England |
| Type: | River bus and tourist/leisure services |
| Owner: | London River Services |
| Operator: | Uber Boat by Thames Clippers |
| Open: | 14 July 2000 |
| Coordinates: | 51.5074°N -0.0792°W |
| Map: | United Kingdom Central London |
Tower Pier is a pier on the River Thames, in Tower Hill, London, England and is located in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is operated by Uber Boat by Thames Clippers and served by various river transport and cruise operators. The pier is close to Tower Bridge and is situated in the immediately adjacent to the southwest corner of the Tower of London.
Tower Millennium Pier was opened on 14 July 2000 by London Mayor Ken Livingstone.[1] [2] It was funded by the Millennium Commission as part of the Thames 2000 project, and was one of five new piers provided by the Commission on the Thames (the others being Blackfriars Millennium Pier, London Eye Pier, Westminster Millennium Pier and Millbank Millennium Pier).
The pier has at its upstream end a small cruise terminal facility which is used for processing passengers and baggage transferred by boat from cruise ships berthed alongside HMS Belfast. The Tower Pier project was part of an integrated transport and regeneration strategy for the Thames led by London's Cross River Partnership.[3]
The pier is used by the river bus route RB1 from Battersea Power Station to Barking Riverside (operated by Uber Boat by Thames Clippers) and Westminster-Greenwich tourist boats (operated by City Cruises).[4] Private-charter entertainment boats also use Tower Pier.[5]
In 2002 the Royal National Lifeboat Institution's Thames lifeboat service was introduced to the River Thames following the Marchioness disaster, and Tower Pier was initially used as a base for the lifeboat service. In 2006 the RNLI station moved up-river to a new base, the former Waterloo Police Pier on Victoria Embankment next to Waterloo Bridge, which took the name Tower Lifeboat Station.[6]