Thames Gateway Essex : Cutting through the glossy brochures

Where will all the traffic go when the new 6-lane motorway-style road bridge across the river Thames in the Thames Gateway regeneration zone is constructed? The scheme is being promoted as a `local crossing' between Thamesmead and Beckton, but it will complete dual-carriageways to the North Circular and M11 on the north side of the river, and to the M25 on the south.

The proposed Thames Gateway Bridge, which could be completed in 2010 would cross the Thames at Gallions Reach, connecting Beckton in the borough of Newham to Thamesmead in the borough of Greenwich. It would join existing dual carriageways on the north side (the A406 North Circular and A13 at their junction with the A1020 Royal Docks Road) with an existing dual carriageway on the south (A2016). New approach roads would be built to provide the links

The Mayor, Transport for London, and Greenwich council have all publicly pledged that the bridge and its associated roads will not affect Oxleas Wood. Ken Livingstone, today announced the end of the three month public consultation on the Thames Gateway Bridge. The public consultation started on 12 May and finished on the 13th August.

Bob Kiley, Commissioner for Transport, said:

“At TfL, we take the views of all residents and businesses very seriously when considering new major transport projects. We now need time to analyse and collate views and opinions expressed about the proposed Thames Gateway Bridge before we are able to publish the full consultation results.”

The results of the public consultation will affect various aspects of the design – the junctions, the public transport routes and so on. These will all affect the eventual environmental impact of the bridge. The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) will completed before the end of the year. It will then be examined at a public inquiry or by a Parliamentary Committee and be taken into account before deciding whether to go ahead with the bridge.

There will be a massive loss of rich archaeological potential in the area. Preliminary predictions of noise and air quality impacts have been undertaken. Air quality predictions to date indicate that the baseline air quality is anticipated to be poorer to the north of the River. In some areas national and EU targets for air quality will not be met. Noise assessment to-date has indicated that a number of properties would be affected by noise and vibration levels. The motorway-style road bridge will not guarantee local work for local people as claimed. This is because the crossing will make it easier for people from outside the area to drive longer distances to access jobs in Newham, Greenwich and other local boroughs. This undermines claims that the bridge will be a `local crossing' giving local people access to work opportunities;
Traffic leaving the bridge north and south of the river will pile onto already clogged roads in some of London's poorest communities which already suffer chronic road traffic and air quality problems.

Maps of the route
 http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/downloads/pdf/tgb-panelB.pdf

The cost of building the Thames Gateway Bridge is currently estimated at £425 million. The regeneration project is forecast to bring 105,000 new jobs, 120,000 new homes and 160,000 more people are expected in the area.
Forecast traffic flows on the Thames Gateway Bridge in 2011 are predicted to be about 60-65,000 trips per day or 22 million trips per year.


TAKING THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD TO SUBTOPIA
by Jonathan Glancey
Wednesday July 30, 2003
The Guardian

Thames Gateway, a vision of brave New Britain in yellow brick and grey breezeblock: a land where classless citizens are stakeholders in an accessible, 24-hour retail culture. Here planning objectives will be reached by offering Prescott people their choice of thousands of traditional style, government-approved developers' homes, adorned with satellite dishes and burglar alarms. Overhead vast cats' cradles of high-voltage wires zigzag across the wind-shot landscape. Some of the new homes under the cables will face the fierce tidal river. Residents will stare across restless brown water to rows of identical brave new housing developments on the other side of the Thames.
This was once Docklands - it still is if you hack out east as far as Tilbury - but today it is Thames Gateway, a land that stretches east along both sides of the river. Here are the new housing gulags: brick archipelagos where those unable to afford homes in central London or its pricey suburbs will come to settle, commute, eke out a living and shop. A land and riverscape that is intriguing from the air, is hard, unloved and even banal seen close up. It is new housing that might look appealing in estate agents' brochures - all croissants and cappuccinos and fluffy white dressing gowns on the sun-drenched terrace - but it is cynically designed and unimaginatively built.
The houses are hemmed in by fast-flowing tides of heavy traffic, flanked by drive-through burger bars, decorated by lonely shrubs and sad young trees bent over by the Siberian winds that scythe across these marshy flatlands, and littered with the all-but-statutory burned out cars and burst tyres. The dream of building new homes, new towns along the eastern banks of the Thames is an old, even honourable dream. Yet the truth is that there is, as yet, no sign that this will be a characterful satellite. What is being built here, for all the fine words spluttered in the name of Thames Gateway, is low-grade subtopian housing: isolated, boring, and a nesting ground for future disaffected teenagers........


30th July 2003
£327m announced for the Thames Gateway.
Tony Winterbottom, Director of Development and Regeneration at the LDA, said: "This is excellent news for London's Olympic bid. It will strengthen London's chances of hosting the 2012 Olympic Games.
Under the Thames Gateway development plans more than £1 billion is being invested - £330m from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister on top of £600m already committed to transport schemes in the Thames Gateway area- to help enable development of 120,000 new homes and the building of key transport links. A further £1 billion is expected to come from the private sector. There will also be further funding for:
the Queen Mary College BioTech Business Innovation Centre
the University of East London Royals Knowledge Dock
the Construction Skills Academy.

Science and Innovation Minister, Lord Sainsbury and Director of the Wellcome Trust, Dr Mark Walport have launched a new London bio-tech plan to help the capital's biotech sector create jobs in London. The plan, called London Life Sciences Strategy and Action Plan, has been drawn up by the London Development Agency. The overall aim of the plan is to develop London as one of the world's leading centres for medical and bio-technology research.

In addition central government has just approved a £30M budget for SouthEssex, as part of the Thames Gateway.Some of it may be used to fund the Southend bypass, which is planned to run from near the Dick Turpin pub on the A127, right round Rayleigh and Hullbridge way, joining back up with the A13 at Bournes Green.