Opinion & Debate

"A lot has been written in the press about ‘The Thames Gateway Project’ but who knows what it is? If I were to stop 100 random people on any London street, I guess quite a few might imagine it to be a big gate being built across the Thames, or some strange piece of modern art featuring various gates from B & Q placed strategically along the river. I don’t think many would recognise it as Britain’s most ambitious development concept, with talk of anything between 200,000 and 400,000 new homes being built.

We are now a nation where home ownership is an emotional, social and financial goal that most can’t reach until well into their thirties. So, the thousands of new homes coming out of the ground in the Thames Gateway over the next months and years will help bring housing opportunities to a generation that would not otherwise have the opportunity to own homes of their own.

My company, HemingwayDesign is part of the George Wimpey team delivering most of the housing at what we believe is the most innovative and exciting project in the UK, not just in the Thames Gateway.  ‘The Bridge’, in Dartford, Kent, is being developed as a joint venture with ProLogis and Dartford Borough Council which should kick-start the Thames Gateway regeneration with 1,500 modern homes complemented by wonderful landscaping, leisure space, parkland, community facilities, a new school, healthcare and shops.  ‘The Nucleus’, a modern business facility to nurture start-ups, a science park and an office park will contribute to the creation of 7,500 new jobs.  Both residents and workers will benefit from Fastrack, a new transit system.  It’s going to be a fantastic new community-orientated development in one of the most convenient and vibrant areas of the South East.  The Bridge is showing what ‘joined up thinking’ and a commitment to ‘placemaking’ can achieve.

Un-coordinated

However, it is still very much a stand-alone ‘project’, as are most of the other new development schemes emerging along the Thames. This poses a problem. On a building programme of this scale, the Thames Gateway should be a Project with a capital ‘P’ and fully co-ordinated and integrated, not a series of small projects all going their own little way and possibly duplicating their offers. Without overall planning and guidance, there is a real risk that some of the Thames Gateway area will end up as monocultural, soulless, identikit Noddy-boxes set in seas of black tarmac.

This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to create something wonderful for Britain that could be the envy of the world.  An opportunity to create a series of ‘sustainable communities’, all having their unique characteristics and offers, set in an undervalued environment that has great potential to be rescued from the abuses of history and industry and brought back into public use. With modern methods, understanding and proper management, the Thames Gateway has the potential to become an outstanding environment in which to live.

There are fine minds throwing ideas around. Sir Terry Farrell’s wonderful idea is to declare all the land around the new developments a new National Park. With the government’s laudable emphasis on housing and with the great architects and designers that Britain has, this is possible. When you see what the Dutch are doing in Amsterdam on the reclaimed island of Ijberg and how they create inviting visitor centres for new settlements like the 30,000-home development at Liedsche Rijn, the precedents are there.

Here, though, we don’t even appear to be able to set up a body with overall responsibility for The Thames Gateway. I fear we are about to throw an opportunity away. The price will be a Thames Gateway that is disjointed and mediocre, not an example to the world.

Wayne Hemingway. January 2007