Housing growth in the Thames Gateway will “flatline” unless the private sector takes a lead on development, according to the chief executive of the London Thames Gateway Development Corporation.
Once the centrepiece of government regeneration plans, the region is now in danger of seeing no growth, according to LTGDC boss Peter Andrews.
Under the Comprehensive Spending Review, the corporation is one of several bodies to be scrapped, along with the Thames Gateway programme’s millions of pounds of funding.
Andrews told Estates Gazette: “Grant is now the sole catalyst for housing starts in the Thames Gateway. Without significant re-engagement from the private sector, cutbacks could see housing growth begin to flatline.”
This week, Nick Raynsford, the Labour MP for Greenwich & Woolwich, said that the decision to cut the funding programme – which has cost government £1.1bn since 2001 – would deliver a “death blow to the prospects of a coherent development of the Thames Gateway to its full potential”. Boroughs such as Barking & Dagenham, Gravesend and Thurrock would suffer the most, he said.
Labour’s Thames Gateway programme aimed to provide 160,000 homes between 2001 and 2016, along with jobs, transport links and business parks, but it is estimated that only 60,000 homes have so far been built. Critics have blamed local politics and too many layers of competing public-sector vehicles for stalling progress.
Thames Gateway minister Bob Neill said that there was “very little to show” for the millions Labour invested in the area, and that the new coalition administration would hand power over how to develop the area back to local councils and communities.
Thames Gateway funding, page 56
