Thames Housing Plan
Thursday 31st July, 2003
A massive London housing plan, annexing 40 miles of the Thames riverbank and stretching into Kent, Essex and Bedfordshire, was announced by John Prescott yesterday.
The £2 billion programme will lead to more than 200,000 new homes on both greenfield and brownfield sites, pushing the capital towards the North Sea. The 12-year scheme aims to create at least 300,000 jobs in the South East. One in four homes will be affordable housing for key workers such as teachers and nurses, including a significant number of prefabricated homes.
The first stage will involve 120,000 houses on five sites along the Thames and on both sides of the estuary in Kent and Essex. But up to a further 100,000 homes will be built in three areas outside London where green fields and farmland will be concreted over.
Rural campaigners were enraged after it emerged that at least 50 per cent of the development outside London will be on green swaths of Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Kent. Other organisations were concerned that the project would not provide enough affordable housing for key workers who are now being priced out of the London market. Housing experts also raised the spectre of satellite towns being isolated outside the City with inadequate transport links into London and on to Europe.
Ministers have repeatedly insisted that more than 80 per cent of the new housing in the Thames Gateway area would be on brownfield urban sites. But yesterday officials from Mr Prescott’s office told The Times that in the three other development areas, Milton Keynes, the M11 corridor from London to Stansted and Cambridge, and Ashford, at least half of the homes would be on undeveloped greenfield sites. “We do not know the exact proportions but you could say about 50 per cent greenfield, 50 per cent brownfield,” one official said.
Mr Prescott said 120,000 homes would be built in the Thames Gateway area in five priority areas: Stratford, East London; Greenwich/Woolwich; Barking Reach; Thurrock and north Kent-Thameside.
Mr Prescott said: “The money I am allocating will help to kick-start the process of turning Europe’s largest collection of brownfield sites into living, breathing communities where people are proud to belong.”
Before touring the areas by helicopter with the Prime Minister, he announced that £330 million will be spent over the next three years to kick-start the housing programme. A further £1 billion to £2 billion would be attracted from other public and private partners, he said.
But a further £164 million has been earmarked for developments in areas outside the Thames Gateway. A report published by Mr Prescott yesterday said that 133,000 homes would be built in the Milton Keynes area over the next three years, 44,000 more than planned, with a similar number built in Stansted and Ashford.
Countryside campaigners said that developers in both the Thames Gateway and the three other areas would build first on the more profitable greenfield areas. The Campaign to Protect Rural England said that the report had ducked the issue of density and brownfield targets. Nigel Kersey, director of CPRE London, said: “It will be extremely disappointing if the Government has adopted a 50 per cent target outside London for greenfield sites. Large swaths of the countryside will be ruined and people’s quality of life will be damaged. But I fear that developers will encroach on both green belt and greenfield areas as these will be the most profitable sites.”
David Davis, the Shadow Deputy Prime Minister, said: “Low employment areas with inadequate infrastructure and transport links will not create sustainable communities. It will create high-stress dormitory towns to the detriment of the quality of life of residents.”
Edward Davey, the Liberal Democrat spokesman, said: “John Prescott’s plans must be backed up with the appropriate social and transport infrastructure. Without schools, hospitals and public transport links, these new communities will struggle to succeed.”