by Terry Hatton
Any conversation, article or broadcast about the regeneration of London’s Docklands inevitably turns, sooner or later, to the London Docklands Development Corporation. While the LDDC has justifiably taken credit for one of the greatest feats of regeneration in recent history, there is another thread running through Docklands which was there long before the LDDC — the Port of London Authority, whose changing pattern of business set the whole process in motion.
The PLA had been the major landowner and largest employer in this part of east London since its inception in 1908. Created by an Act of Parliament, a major part of its overall responsibility in running the Port of London was to oversee the cargo handling operations in the enclosed docks east of Tower Bridge: the ownership of these docks was also vested in the PLA. Apart from minor adjustments to accommodate advances in cargo-handling techniques, operations in the enclosed docks remained virtually unchanged for over 50 years.
It was in the early 1960s that the PLA began to plan for the quantum leap that was soon to effect the shipping and ports industry worldwide. Container ships and bulk carriers were about to be introduced, vessels which needed deeper water, with cargoes needing more open storage space. The key decision for the PLA was its investment in the little-used Tilbury Docks some 25 miles downriver. Here there was natural deep water with a vast hinterland available. It was ideally placed to cope with the revolution in cargo handling from small individual units to containers, packaged timber and bulk grain, all of which today is taken for granted.
The advance of technology through the 1960s and 1970s ultimately caught up with London’s traditional dockland. The old enclosed docks and the riverside wharves in metropolitan London were unable to meet the new requirements: they were simply unsuited and could not be adapted further. The gradual move of cargoes downriver led to the upriver docks — East India, London and St Katherine, Surrey, West India and Millwall and finally in 1981 the Royal Group — no longer having a role to play in the activity of Britain’s largest port.
With its traditional trade gone, London’s Docklands had to find new and alternative uses to fill the vacuum. The PLA began this process in the late 1970s, taking the initiative to bring new life to the area. It was already attracting industry, commerce and housing into the dock areas when government plans to create the network of urban development corporations throughout Britain were introduced.
The pioneering schemes were the Asda Store at Millwall, the new Billingsgate Fish Market at North Quay, West India Dock, the Quayside Industrial Estate, which, with Cannon Workshops provided the very first start-up business premises on the Isle of Dogs. All of this was being implemented in the transitional period while ships were still discharging their cargoes elsewhere in the dock estate.
Although much of the dock estates were vested in the LDDC by Parliamentary order in 1981, the PLA still retains in excess of 200 acres for its own development projects and continues to be a major force in Docklands redevelopment.
The PLA’s property division, Port of London Properties (POLP), consists of a group of companies set up in 1984 to manage and develop the PLA’s non-operational land on a fully commercial basis.
POLP remains the largest single commercial landowner in the new Docklands area, owning land in both the Isle of Dogs Enterprise Zone and the Royal Group of Docks, including the site of London City Airport, in the London Borough of Newham.
Jeffery Jenkinson is POLP’s chief executive and responsible, together with POLP’s board, for guiding the group’s activities at this exciting time. He says:
The PLA’s philosophy towards its property activities is that Port of London Properties should be operated as a fully commercial activity at arm’s length from the PLA Group.
It is subject to normal group approval and reporting procedures, but otherwise is free to achieve its objectives and budgets in a commercially responsive way.
The starting point for policy evaluation is the market; against our judgment of this we create development policies for individual sites, considering each one on its merits. We go to the market to ensure that the best possible price or agreement is obtained.
We adopt a flexible approach to the structuring of agreements and have a mixture of rental flow and projects producing capital receipts spread throughout Docklands, and in the Tilbury area.
While POLP occasionally sells land, it prefers to retain its acreage for a wide range of development projects in which its role is that of a full development partner. This policy has resulted in some of the more successful developments on the Isle of Dogs, including the Clippers Quay housing development in partnership with Roger Malcolm Homes and particularly the multi-phase Waterside scheme in partnership with Wiggins Group.
At Waterside, for instance, while each phase has its own individual appearance, they are all planned to blend into an overall scheme. Waterside is being built on a 7-acre site overlooking South West India Dock and is rapidly becoming a business village within Docklands. When finished it will have retail, restaurant and leisure facilities — including a marina — as well as offices and business apartments. With all these facilities and its flexible approach to buyers’ specific requirements, it has been described as the most successful development in Docklands.
Other POLP projects in Docklands include the Wates Jamestown Harbour Housing Scheme, Teltscher Brothers’ wine-bottling plant, the Fulton headquarters, the Harbour Quay development by Standard Commercial Property Services, Mercury Satellite Communications Station, the Isle of Dogs Asda superstore and the Park Quay housing scheme in Newham.
One of POLP’s most notable successes has been Cannon Workshops, a complex of 135 small workshops and offices, established in 1982 to encourage local start-up businesses. Of these units, 56 have been affected by the Canary Wharf financial centre and alternative accommodation has been provided for tenants at a new complex known as Poplar Business Park.
The latest major scheme in which POLP is involved is a joint development at North Quay, West India Dock. Outline planning permission has been obtained for a 1.9m-sq ft scheme which will be POLP’s largest development to date.
POLP does not just put land into its projects, it also takes an active, direct role in their management, as at Cannon Workshops and Poplar Business Park. However, in partnership developments POLP also has an input at the design, concept and basic planning stages. Thereafter construction, marketing and timing decisions are taken jointly in consultation with the partners. Construction work at any site once its potential has been fully analysed will proceed without any presale or prelet conditions.
There are no ratios laid down for POLP’s developments to have so much residential to office to industrial space. The composition of a site depends entirely on its location and its perceived potential and, of course, on planning demands.
The total area of the PLA estate now being developed and managed directly by POLP is 220 acres and will ensure the group remains a major force in the continuing process of Docklands redevelopment for the foreseeable future.
But the docks are not the sole focus of Docklands — one of the major reasons for the success of Docklands’ regeneration must be the attraction of the water space inherent to the area. Very few developments have not been enhanced by their proximity to the old dock basins or the River Thames.
It is alongside the Thames that some of the most imaginative — certainly the most expensive — developments in Docklands are being constructed. Here again the PLA through its River Division has an important, direct and specific role to play, although probably this is not generally appreciated.
The PLA is the primary freehold owner of the bed, the soil and the foreshore up to high-water mark, of the tidal River Thames. This extends from the landward limit at Teddington to the seaward limit 150 km to the east. The Act requires the PLA to license all works in, under or over the River Thames and the grant of that licence removes the public right of navigation over the land area affected by the licence. Frontagers have a private right of access to their land from the River Thames and granting of licences does not affect that right.
The PLA is prepared to consider granting a works or embankment licence for developments alongside or into the Thames, subject to there being no effect on the regime of the river, other licences, and not impeding navigation. It can, of course, be argued that any works, any jetty or other structure will impede navigation but the PLA takes the view that the main channel must be kept clear for navigation at all times, having regard to the size and nature of vessels likely to require to navigate in any particular stretch of the tidal Thames. In granting licences the PLA seeks to ensure that access to the river should be preserved and improved wherever possible.
It can be seen that there is a valuable contribution to be made in the right circumstances by river land to enhance development and improve the relationship between land and water for the public’s benefit.
Another major use of the River Thames in connection with riverside developments has been the adaptation of existing jetties to meet the requirements of the planning authorities for the provision of riverside walkways. It is clear that where such a walkway is required, and where a jetty is used, the land immediately behind becomes capable of even more intensive development: this illustrates then the considerable value of river land.
Riverside walkways over river land are numerous and include the former Billingsgate Fish Market in the City, the Free Trade Wharf development in Wapping and the Chrysalis development at Blythe Wharf in Stepney.
New embankments can be seen at the Rooffe Group development in Wapping, at St Hilda’s Wharf, proposals at Hermitage Wharf By Regalian close to Tower Bridge, and, on the South Bank by Isleff and Hoffman in Rotherhithe. The most notable embankment of all, of course, is one we all take for granted — the Victoria Embankment through Westminster to the City.
Buildings suspended over the river, for which a PLA licence is required, can be seen at Grosvenor Road, where Hanover Properties have recently completed a residential development, and at Jacobs Island where the Jacobs Island Co are building China Wharf and are planning a development at India Wharf, as are Bovis at the adjacent site at Springalls Wharf.
While the PLA’s primary role has historically been one of encouraging cargo-handling along the River Thames, it recognises that because of changes in technology and the developing desire and fashion for living and working by water that land previously used for cargo-handling purposes would best be used for other developments.
However, the PLA’s decision to agree to encroachment of whatever kind by issuing a licence depends entirely on the nature of a proposal and the location. The very nature of the Thames and the characteristics of a tidal river mean that no one scheme can ever create a precedent for another elsewhere.
Licences issued by the PLA range from major riverside developments to private moorings for vessels, from the smallest pleasure craft through to piers, floating hotels, conference centres and restaurants. In all there are some 5,000 works licensed by the PLA on the Thames.
Another major influence on Docklands Development has been the influence of the River Thames itself as a utility. It has long been said that in these days of almost perpetual traffic jams in London it is surely a scandal that the one really great highway in the capital remains underused. Not for long — the new Thames Line river bus service, complemented by water taxis, opened to the public in June and will build up to a full service by the end of the year, linking the new Docklands to the old-established heart of the capital.
The PLA sees this important addition to London’s transport facilities spurring other riverside developments into providing piers for commuters as at London Bridge City and Chelsea Harbour. The PLA has already supported the building of several new piers and is encouraging the controlled development of several more, and it is the river which will see the next major regeneration contribution with more and more facilities being encouraged for recreation, leisure and business to enhance the new land-based activity.
As the only authority having a complete overview for the river’s many aspects the PLA River Division is very conscious of its responsibilities to the future development of the Thames. David Jeffery, chief executive of the division, says:
The PLA’s aim is to maximise the value that the River Thames can provide for everyone — Londoners and visitors alike, leisure and industry. Because ultimately no project impinging on the River Thames can proceed without PLA River Division support, notwithstanding various consents from interested bodies, the PLA is able to ensure the right balance of development is achieved to blend into the essential character of the river.
In all cases the PLA works closely with the local authority planners, both in strategic and development-control matters to assist promoters of all types of schemes in bringing together all the various agencies who have an interest in or input to a proposal. Acting as a catalyst in many cases the PLA endeavours to bring them to a successful conclusion.
So there is the continuing thread — a traditional port authority recognising the need for change and a widening of its activities to help others fulfil the regeneration of Docklands and the Thames. London started with the river — and the river continues to be the major factor in its evolution.