Heseltine’s dream

 Whatever happened to the Thames Gateway? I recently cycled around the Thames estuary as part of a journey, in stages, around the coast of Britain. It wasn’t a great experience - busy roads, big lorries, aggressive drivers. The landscape was gritty and flat: huge logistics sheds, power lines and industrial structures dominated the low horizon. 

I cycled across the Isle of Sheppey to Sheerness with its busy port handling motor cars and fruit and veg. It's on the edge of England, and it feels it. Through Gillingham and Chatham struggling towns that lost the navy and have yet to find alternative economic drivers. Like most settlements in the Thames Estuary they contain neighbourhoods with higher levels of deprivation and unemployment than the rest of England.
 
On the north bank of the Thames, I got stuck on the dual carriageway that leads down to DP World London Gateway deep-sea container terminal; huge lorries stacked with containers roared up and down. Not great for cycling but an encouraging sign of economic growth.
 
It was nearly 30 years ago that Michael Heseltine, then Secretary of State for the Environment. proposed plans for developing what was then called the East Thames Corridor, a regional planning project inspired by Sir Peter Hall’s idea of a linear city on the north and south banks of the estuary.  John Prescott,  Deputy Prime Minister after Labour was elected in 1997, liked the idea and, badged as Thames Gateway, the vision was a key part of the Blair Government’s regeneration agenda.
 
Since then the area has consistently been unable to deliver the same levels of economic growth as other parts of the UK. The success of pockets of development at Canary Wharf and the estuary’s ports have not been felt across the area. In 2018 the Thames Estuary 2050 Growth Commission proposed focussing on five growth areas: the City Ribbon (London); Inner Estuary, South Essex foreshore, North Kent foreshore, and the River Thames. What Chairman John Armitt called “a tapestry of productive places along a global river”.
 
Then last year the Government set up The Thames Estuary Growth Board which claims in its report 'The Green Blue'  that working as one unified voice, it “will deliver the greenest and most productive estuary in the world.”
 
Its plans include a freeport, increased use of the river to carry more passengers and freight; safeguarding wharves and piers; hydrogen infrastructure and digital infrastructure.
 
There is some progress:  Highways England is about to put in its application for the Lower Thames Crossing, east of Gravesend - the longest road tunnel in the UK; a competition was announced recently for an £8bn masterplan for Thamesmead; the City Markets are due to move to Barking in 2025;  Ebbsfleet Garden City is growing; the Dagenham Studios are on track as part of the Estuary Production Corridor and I am told that the Growth Board will be announcing new plans for the region soon. In a recent interview with Barking and Dagenham Leader Darren Rodwell told me “ I very much champion the Green Blue report,” and with characteristic understatement described Barking and Dagenham as the “gateway to the world.”
 
I cycled on through Leigh on Sea which has been home to a successful estuarial industry for two hundred years. It is the capital of the Thames Estuary cockle-harvesting business. Up until the 1980s cockles were raked from the sands by hand but today vacuum dredgers suck them up by the ton. While some of the catch goes to the Whelk Stalls of east London, most are exported to Italy and Spain. While cockle hoovering is not going to provide any of the new jobs the Growth Board are seeking, I found its resilience as a local business most encouraging.