Between the first and second world wars London expanded at an extraordinary rate. From 1911 to 1931 London added nearly a million more people and reached an historic population of over 8.6 million – more than one in five people of England and Wales were Londoners. Following the damage wrought by the Blitz, the long slow grind of deindustrialisation and the closure of the docks London’s population collapsed to a low of 6.8 million in 1981, with much of the decline in the inner London boroughs.
From its inception in 1986, LPAC’s lead members and officers supported the green belt and its objective of containing London’s growth. Nevertheless in recognising the weakness of activity in the east of London, LPAC argued with government that there needed to be active interventions there to re-balance the economy.
LPAC identified development corridors where public and private investment should be directed to kick-start growth, pinpointed key centres such as Stratford where enhanced connectivity would be a spur to wider regeneration and, given the government’s laissez-faire approach to development in Docklands, lobbied for investment in public transport to ensure accessibility and better integration with the rest of the London economy. As part of the strategy of re-balancing the economy, a variety of papers in Nicky’s archive illustrate LPAC’s ambitious plans for the wider Thames gateway. LPAC lobbied hard for a regional airports policy to share the economic benefits that airports can bring, but also as a way to mitigate some of the worst environmental problems. Many of the arguments set out in those papers resonate today as the debate over a third runway at Heathrow resumes.
In the 1950s, east London was seen to have done well out of the post-war economic boom. “In an age of full employment, the East End working man benefited from labour shortages”.[1] A man could walk out of work on a Friday and walk into a new job on the Monday. Pay was good. The Dock Labour Scheme of 1947 created a registered dock labour force enjoying job security and a minimum wage. By the 1960s, the “combination of the port’s buoyancy and the industrial strength conferred by job security had propelled dockers early to the top of the manual earnings league.”[2]
Global economic changes began to be felt across Britain from the end of the 1960s and they came quickest to the ports. “Closures were prompted by technological innovation in the form of the introduction of containerisation, a general decline in world shipping and the increased size of ships”[3] Added to these trends were long-established but inflexible labour practices that brought disruptions which damaged London’s reputation: “Shipping companies and distributors gave up on London, as year after year, dispute after dispute closed the quays.”[4] In 1967, just before the first dock closure, that of the East India dock, there were still 22,815 registered dock workers and lightermen in the Port of London. By 1980 this figure had fallen to 4,100 and in 1981 the announcement came that the last upstream docks at the Royals were to close. This left eight and a half square miles (22 sq km) of redundant space. It was the largest redevelopment area in Western Europe.
The pace of economic change, combined with similar processes of restructuring in other industries, devastated the East End. “London’s manufacturing workforce was 1.29 million strong in 1966, already a drop from 1.43 million just five years before. By 1974 it had fallen to 940,00, by 1989 435,000 and by 1999 274,000. In the thirty years from 1966, manufacturing in London lost nearly 80 per cent of its jobs. By the early 1980s every part of London suffered.”[5] Every sector of manufacturing was affected-– furniture, cars, vehicle parts, engineering firms, food processing, names like Hoover, Firestone Tyres, British Leyland left. The long list of closures seemed endless. London lost more manufacturing jobs faster than anywhere else.[6]
The one bright spot was the development of Heathrow. In April 1955, Heathrow’s first real terminal, the ‘Europa Building’ (the current T2), opened for short-haul flights. In April 1968 a new short-haul building (now T1) was opened – at the time the largest airport terminal in Europe. Terminal 3 was expanded in 1970 to accommodate the new Boeing 747s and in 1976 Concorde began operating from the airport. Terminal 4 was opened in April 1986. Freight traffic also grew as exporters and importers sought quicker, more reliable routes, especially for perishable produce. Heathrow became the Sky Dock in the West, with the spin-off activities in logistics and other service jobs catalysing economic activity along the Thames valley to Reading and beyond.
But in east London, as companies pulled out, buildings were abandoned. Sites stood empty, crumbling brick work and shattered windows, corrugated iron barriers and notices warning of guard dogs. In Tower Hamlets, the amount of ‘dead and disturbed space’ rose from 57 hectares to 277 in 1977. This was three times the land area still occupied by factories.[7]
Government policy actively contributed to and accelerated the decline. Since the 1930s national government sought to restrict London’s growth and to encourage industries to move elsewhere. The post-war period of bomb damage and slum clearance provided further opportunities. Ministers had explicit aims of trying to prevent London growing geographically in size and achieving a shift in the geographical economic balance of the UK. The strategy was to provide attractive, large-scale communities outside London and the green belt to accommodate the forecast overspill. A “Location of Offices Bureau” would direct businesses away from London to other parts of the country, including Southampton and Portsmouth, Bletchley and Newbury, to new towns at Ashford and Stansted and to major expansions of Ipswich, Northampton, Peterborough and Swindon.
Unsurprisingly, London’s population collapsed from 8.6 million in 1939 to 8 million in 1961, to 7.5 million in 1971 and to a low of 6.8 million in 1981, with much of the decline in the inner London boroughs.[8]
London’s Docklands had been at the forefront of urban policy since the late 1960s. During the 1970s the GLC grappled with the growing realisation that the decline of trade through the docks was more than a cyclical downturn and sought ways in which to shore-up manufacturing industries and preserve jobs. Planners in Whitehall and County Hall struggled to halt the decline and reverse policy and new town growth was constrained in an attempt to support employment in London. However, the 1976 Greater London Development Plan (GLDP), first prepared in the late 1960s, was largely based on research and studies undertaken before the 1971 census and so failed to capture the position of structural decline. It hadn’t taken into account the impact of the 1973 oil price shock, nor had it given adequate weight to the views of local interest groups and communities.
By the early 1980s, the 1976 plan was seen as being severely deficient in terms of reflecting and shaping London. Existing strategic policies in the 1976 plan were concerned with the management of growth and with steering new development and employment to appropriate locations. They were inadequate to deal with the problems of decline which London now faced. Nor had they proved effective in dealing with imbalances in employment opportunities and development between different parts of London.
The 1984 revisions of the plan sought to improve on the 1976 version in a number of ways, including by drawing on extensive informal and formal consultations. The new Greater London Development Plan was to have a wider economic and social context. It was to ensure there was integration of the basic elements of land use, transport and the environment. The plan’s framework was to extend over 10-15 years and was to be reflective of London’s relationship with the rest of the south-east. It meant a substantial re-write of the 1976 version.
The 1984 proposed revisions to the GLDP noted that one of the main objectives of the plan was to redress the imbalance in employment and social opportunity between east and west London. “In particular, within east London, the area of Docklands needs special attention; it contains major employment problems, the social needs of the resident and work force are largely unmet; and yet the possibility of resolving these problems through the redevelopment opportunities that exist in Docklands has been largely untapped. The Plan as approved in 1976 gave scant regard to these issues.” [9]
This was the legacy that LPAC inherited.
National government had not been completely silent on the changes in Docklands.
“It took a helicopter flight by a politician, Mr Peter Walker, to make the leap of imagination that viewed the two sides of the Thames together and to recognise the merit of seizing a remarkable development opportunity offered by rapid dock closures. So, in April 1971 the parliamentary record includes the announcement of an urgent and comprehensive study of the potential for the rebuilding of Docklands”. [10]
In his analysis of the development of Docklands strategic planning, John Hall notes how there was an initial process of research reflected in a study of the Docklands’ potential undertaken by consultants (Travis Morgan & Partners) for the Department of the Environment (DfE) and the GLC between 1971 and 1973. “Five phased and costed models of redevelopment were shortlisted and judges according to their judged effectiveness in ameliorating East London’s inherited housing, transport, employment and environmental disadvantages. Few thought that the most ambitious variant, entitled “Europe” (EEC entry 1973) and offering new service sector jobs would prove attainable.”[11]
From 1974-1977 all three tiers of government – national, regional and the Dockland boroughs – were Labour controlled. This led to the creation of the Docklands Joint Committee – each of the three tiers sent eight elected politicians to oversee the preparation in 1976 of the London Docklands Strategic Plan (LDSP) and its implementation through costed and a timetabled operational programme.
Following the 1979 Conservative election victory, newly appointed environment secretary Michael Heseltine killed off the LDSP and announced his determination to establish a new form of public agency – the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) – one to oversee the development of the London Docklands (and also the Merseyside dock area). The UDCs were loosely based on the New Town Development Corporations which had enabled the new towns to grow so quickly. The Conservative government made it clear that “it could not tolerate a continuation of municipal socialist approaches to redevelopment and averring that the private sector, not the public must take the lead.”[12]
Between 1979-1981, parliament debated approval of the LDDC and “After an unexpectedly protracted hearing of the case for and against an LDDC in the House of Lords (the Merseyside Development Corporation being established almost without hindrance) the LDDC came into being in 1981.”[13]
The LDDC’s area comprised 2,100ha, taking in portions of three east London boroughs:
Tower Hamlets (33% of the LDDC land), Newham (50%), Southwark (17%).
Its powers were principally those of:
Its objective was to “redevelop the area by investment in reclamation and infrastructure, together with business and community support, for residential and commercial development.”[15]
Nevertheless, as Michael Hebbert recorded “Despite their closeness to central London the docks had always been a closed world – concealed, esoteric, covert, almost enigmatic are the words used by their portraitist John Pudney. The LDDC struggled to dispel this sense of remoteness from the rest of London. It could improve local access – laying a cheerful red brick road through the middle of the Isle of Dogs for example – but the major transport connections lay outside its boundary and had become entangled in political disputes between the GLC and central Government. The GLC was committed to a full-scale extension of the Jubilee Line into Docklands, the government believed that conventional buses would serve the purpose” [16]
For John Hall “the principal (and remarkable) achievement of the LDDC during this period was the creation of market demand for land in the area. Before the LDDC came along, many derelict sites had, in effect, negative value. Nobody wanted to acquire them. For example, because of the high cost of reclamation and servicing and poor access. By 1986 land was being sold for commercial use on the isle of Dogs for £7m a hectare and reached £11.5m a hectare on one Wapping site.” [17]
This, John Hall argues, was down to the infrastructure works and marketing. In terms of monitoring its progress, the LDDC had three broad suites of indicators – physical regeneration and investment – which were relatively easy to measure – and social regeneration which was poorly defined. While there were high levels of leverage of private funds into the areas, the issue of employment creation was hotly disputed – for example due to the total restructuring of the newsprint industry, the News International move to Wapping brought in 1,500 jobs but they were jobs relocated from Grays Inn Road (and in fact jobs were lost in the move).
The LDDC began a staged withdrawal from the area in 1994, with powers reverting back to the boroughs. It was finally wound up in March 1998.
Running through the 1984 GLDP’s chapter on the Docklands is a clear tension between the GLC and the LDDC and their respective views on how to stimulate economic recovery. For example, the granting of special planning powers to the LDDC enabled it to promote and control development and specifically private investment in Docklands, but without the concurrent obligation of local public accountability.
“Immediately following the setting up of the LDDC a series of orders were made which had the effect of vesting in the Corporation 657 acres of land in the then ownership of the Council, the Port of London Authority and the borough councils of Newham, Southwark and Tower Hamlets. Over half of the vested lands were local authority housing sites programmed for around 5,500 homes; Tower Hamlets for example, lost 87% of its housing land bank.
In the case of the 130 acres Southwark site, the contingency plan prepared for a mixed development of housing, open space, shopping facilities and some 75,000 sq. ft. of industrial floorspace. Under the LDDC, plots are being offered for sale on the open market for piecemeal development making it impossible to guarantee employment opportunities relevant to local needs. The proposals of the London Docklands Strategic Plan (LDSP), the wishes of the elected local authorities and the needs of local people are not being met.”[18]
The GLC also had concerns about the LDDC’s failure to tackle the lack of infrastructure investment in Docklands and engagement with the local communities “The LDDC is currently preparing a number of its own plans; the Council attaches no weight to these non-statutory plans and stresses the importance of the formal local plan process…Proposals from the LDDC take no account of the views of local resident or those of their representative bodies. From the point of view of strategic planning which aims to secure the full involvement of those affected by planning decisions, the LDDC procedure is unacceptable”.[19]
As the proposals of the LDDC were generally contrary to the spirit of the plan’s policies, and as they were being implemented without local public accountability, “the council is concerned that its statutory strategic policies will be frustrated in an area of London to which a very high priority for improvement is attached.”[20]
The GLC wanted to slow the exodus of industrial employment from east London to stabilise industrial employment at the maximum level compatible with the population of east London. And there needed to be a significant investment in housing – “the waiting list for council housing in Dockland boroughs is estimated (in 1984) to be in excess of 46,000, an increase on the 1976 figure. Much of the existing local authority housing is sub-standard and in need of improvement or total redevelopment. The majority of the resident, working-class population of the area are not in the financial position to raise mortgage finance.”[21]
Residential development being carried out under the auspices of the LDDC took little account of the needs of the existing population, made inadequate provision for local shopping and other community facilities and consisted almost entirely of homes for sale. The GLC was pressing for a tenure split of 80% public sector and 20% private sector. However, “the LDDC’s ownership of the bulk of the housing land is currently a barrier to achieving these policies and the GLC and the borough councils must therefore press for the return of these vested lands.” [22]
There was however a shared view of the need for better transport provision.
“The (GLC) Council has consistently recognised the need for improved and integrated transport services and infrastructure to serve residents and existing activities and to help attract additional employment into Docklands”. [23]
The council and the LDDC jointly funded the Docklands light rail scheme with the support of central government. And the GLC funded improvements to the East London Line and the North Woolwich Line. The GLC also wanted to introduce a river bus service initially between Greenwich and Charing Cross pier and (assuming the Channel Tunnel proceeded) to investigate the suitability of sites in Docklands for the location of the UK freight terminal.
Following the abolition of the GLC, LPAC’s first public document “Policy Issues and Choices” (1988) signalled that LPAC strategic guidance would build on the background work to the 1984 GDLP alterations so that it went forward with the authority of Londoners behind it. “It should be rooted in an analysis of Londoner’s needs, hopes and fears because one should avoid the failure of the 1970s GDLP to advance solutions such as the ‘Motorway Box’ before clearly working out what the problems are.” [24]
It should be “strategic and avoid platitudes, devolve as much as possible, be feasible, plausible and possible, reflect strong concern for the environment and ecology of London, integrate development, transportation and the environment and justify every proposed intervention.”[25]
The document noted that the GLDP (1976) was now seriously out of date and that a new strategic agenda needed to have an inner and outer east-west London objective and an east/west imbalance objective. The polarisation between a growing economy in the central London area and west London and a decline in the inner area and the east would also be reflected in development trends. “The west will experience high pressure on a limited number of sites and buildings and increasing congestion. The east will continue to experience a lack of effective demand particularly on the high proportion of its sites and buildings which are constrained and of a poor quality. The analysis indicates that there may be little to be gained from the protection of poorer quality industrial land and buildings.” [26]
LPAC called for central government to set out policies to achieve a better balance of economic development between east and west London and the east Thames area rather than the ‘Golden Triangle’ of west London. This more balanced growth trajectory would be in the interests of the whole of London.
Following negotiations over the agenda for the strategic guidance, government reluctantly agreed that addressing the east-west imbalance should be one of the strategic objectives that LPAC would develop its advice on.
Policy towards addressing the imbalances between east and west London was refined in the strategic advice, becoming a slightly broader ambition to address the past imbalance between investment in inner and outer London; between outer south and outer west London compared with east London; and the role of private and public investment (particularly in public transport) in redressing these imbalances.
Areas of community need would be defined by the boroughs using a range of social, economic and environmental criteria as the focus for infrastructure investment, environmental improvements and community facilities to support community development initiatives. Strategic guidance should then identify major growth points where the scale of business development could be more than 100,000 sqm.
The implementation of the opportunities in these growth points would be critical to retaining employment in London and ensuring a more harmonious relationship with the rest of the south-east.
Government responded to these concerns, with the guidance noting that “Development pressures have for many years been stronger in the west than east London, and that policies aimed at improving the attractiveness of east London can help to redress this imbalance.”[27] These policies included the regeneration of the Docklands, the planned new rail link between central London and the Docklands (ie the Jubilee Line) and the massive programme of road improvement. Government stated that, in contravention of LPAC’s views, “this practical approach is likely to be more effective than policies aimed at channelling major developments to particular growth points or centres.”[28]
LPAC was to be shut out of any active involvement with LDDC planning decisions. Unlike all other cases across London, LPAC did not provide advice on major planning decision in the LDDC area. LPAC was, however, active in lobbying for investment in new forms of transport to improve accessibility across the Docklands region.
Both the Travis Morgan consultants and the Dockland Joint Committee envisaged some kind of “mini tram” or light rail to improve connectivity. In 1976, another report recommended extension of the Fleet line (eventually renamed the Jubilee line) through Surrey Docks, the Isle of Dogs, North Greenwich and Custom House to Woolwich Arsenal. However, when the Thatcher government came to power, the plans to extend the Jubilee line were halted and the new government insisted that a lower-cost option should be pursued.
A GLC team had worked on the low-cost alternatives to the Jubilee Line extension which proposed an ALRT (Advanced Light Rapid Transit) on the railway corridor beside the Fenchurch Street Line to connect central London to Docklands. This would eventually become the DLR. Once it was set up the LDDC commissioned London Transport to evaluate a number of light rail options. A final report – prepared by the GLC, LDDC, government departments and London Transport – was published in June 1982, proposing a north–south route from Mile End to the Isle of Dogs, and an east–west route linking the Isle of Dogs to the City of London.
Following the publication of the report, the Departments of the Environment and Transport agreed to provide £77m towards construction of the extension, with a deadline of 1987. The funding agreement also included conditions to maximise the use of modern technology, and that no on-going subsidy would be available from government. During the parliamentary process, the northern terminus of the line was changed to Stratford.[29]
LPAC was always concerned about the inter-linkages between land use, economic development and transportation with the relationship between land use and transportation of critical importance to strategic planning which needed to be carefully reflected in UDPs. LPAC’s priority transport objective in the 1988 strategic advice was to foster economic growth and regeneration of inner and East London, to which end it called for a long term investment programme based on a cross London link between the new Heathrow service, Paddington, Waterloo, Liverpool Street and north-east London, which would enable east, west and south London to be connected by through-running suburban rail services. Cross river extensions into south London would serve Lewisham, Thamesmead, Woolwich and the Greenwich Peninsula in order to stimulate development and the extension of the DLR or LRT to serve strategic centres and growth points in the boroughs of Barking and Dagenham, Redbridge, Lewisham and Greenwich.
The economic and regeneration challenges in east London, however, stretched far beyond the London boundary. It was part of the motivation for the “Tower to Tilbury” study in the early 1970s, involving the GLC, the riparian boroughs and Kent and Essex County Councils. This had its roots in a paper written by David Eversley, GLC chief strategic planner, called “London’s New ERA” or Eastbourne River Area. In that paper he suggested using a form of new town corporation to implement the regeneration of east London. The ERA paper was never published, just circulated internally to officers and elected members.
Part of SERPLAN’s strategy for tackling this economic opportunity involved identifying an East Thames Corridor (ETC) area which it was hoped would be a focus for future investment in the region. The ETC defined by SERPLAN at 977 square kilometres contained the south-east’s ‘largest concentration of outstanding development opportunities which are in accord with established planning policy’. Local authorities had already identified a number of these as major ‘flagship’ regeneration sites but in many cases future development would be very dependent upon infrastructure improvements and the removal of other constraints such as land contamination (SERPLAN, 1987).[30]
In late 1991 the government commissioned a consultants’ report into the potential of the Thames Gateway for development and environmental enhancement. Speaking at the annual London Weekend Television lecture on London, on 12 December 1991, Micheal Heseltine, then secretary of state for the environment, outlined a grandiose vision of an East Thames Corridor (ETC) where future commercial, industrial, leisure and housing development would combine with major new transport provision to create a key gateway area between the rest of the UK and Europe. The lecture stressed the opportunity and potential of the ETC and claimed that ‘no urban project in the world should command more notice and imagination.[31]
In its work for the 1994 Strategic Advice, LPAC argued that “the aim now is to secure the implementation of these opportunities through co-ordinated action. The East Thames Corridor is being taken forward by the DoE Task Force. LPAC is associating its work with regeneration in Inner London, the Lea Valley and with Central London.” [32] A new element proposed by LPAC was to co-ordinate existing government policy in favour of east London.
“[LPAC] seeks to realise benefits for regeneration of the areas arising from the dramatic changes in strategic accessibility which will result from new and planned transport infrastructure, including the Channel Tunnel Rail Link and development of Stanstead Airport. It is vital to London’s World City role and competitive future in Europe that the capacity and resources available in East London are fully harnessed. LPAC proposes that a new commercial, educational, cultural, and leisure complex be stimulated there, to complement the City and West End, and counterbalance the potential of the M25/north-west Kent part of the east Thames Corridor. It will be based on the potential of Stratford’s growing accessibility and important sites in Docklands. The benefits of this would be felt widely across east London. It would focus efforts to achieve a better east-west balance across the Capital and counter the dangers of renewed decentralisation of activities beyond London, contrary to Government and local regeneration aims.” [33]
To this end LPAC identified “Regeneration and Opportunity Areas” where it advised government and the boroughs, through their UDPs, to focus their investments.
To complement this picture of need, LPAC identified the best areas for investment. Many of these lay in three major development corridors: Thames Gateway, the Lee valley and along the Paddington-Park Royal axis. Two of these corridors (Thames Gateway and the Lee Valley) came together in the east London development focus: the focal point of a network of existing and proposed public transport links, development sites and labour market potential with Stratford at its centre. LPAC lobbied for Stratford to become the international station on the Channel Tunnel rail link and stressed the importance of releasing the employment potential of the sites through using public funds to remove the contamination, access and other constraints on their development.
Over the next ten years, boroughs sought to access government support through bids to the Single Regeneration Budget (SRB) programme. The SRB began in 1994 and brought together a number of programmes from several government departments with the aim of simplifying and streamlining the assistance available for regeneration. SRB partnerships were expected to involve a diverse range of local organisations in the management of their scheme, including local businesses, the voluntary sector and the local community.
The SRB was administered at regional level by the Regional Development Agencies and, in London, by the London Development Agency from 2000. According to a detailed academic assessment[34] of the six rounds of the SRB, here conducted by Rhodes, Tyler and Brennan, London benefitted from around £1.5bn SRB funding with another £5.6bn leveraged in.[35]
Inner London boroughs, such as Newham, Tower Hamlets, Southwark, Hackney, and Islington, benefited from the SRB programme in that they generally obtained larger amounts of funding than outer boroughs. This suggests that there was a rough correspondence between the geographic distribution of funding and a borough’s degree of deprivation.
Another significant geographical factor seems to have been a bias towards the east London corridor and Thames Gateway. The twelve London boroughs located along the corridor received over half (54%) of total London SRB funding.[36]
The 1996 strategic guidance was to put the SRB at the centre of its regeneration policies; with a series of SRB strategies targeting the majority of the key locations (in the Thames Gateway), especially Stratford, Canning Town, East Thameside, Woolwich Town Centre and the Arsenal, Greenwich Waterfront, and Deptford Creek.”[37]
As part of its strategic approach to re-balancing the London economy, LPAC lobbied against further expansion at Heathrow, preferring instead to see more efficient use of Stansted and Gatwick, with greater interconnectedness between the three airports, thereby creating a regional airport offer, rather than a single, dominant international hub.
In June 1985, the then government published its white paper on airports policy.[38] Its remarks on the future capacity of Heathrow were given in the context of the debate at the time, centred on the need for a fifth terminal rather than more runway capacity. The arguments in favour of a fifth terminal were that it would enable the fullest possible use to be made of Heathrow’s runways and give resident airlines assured room for expansion. The government agreed that there was a strong case for allowing traffic at Heathrow to develop to its full potential, but it believed that a fifth terminal could not yet be regarded as a real option until the feasibility of releasing the Perry Oaks site had been established. “Bearing in mind the government’s wish to encourage competition there is some doubt about the rate of growth of average aircraft loads and therefore when sufficient runway capacity will be available to justify a fifth terminal. The government is therefore not prepared to make any commitments at this stage on the question of a fifth terminal at Heathrow but will keep the matter under review”[39]
The government was, however, convinced that demand would continue to grow at Heathrow. It was suggested at the inquiries that followed that about 42 million passengers per annum (mppa) could eventually be accommodated at the airport within the four terminals already provided, bearing in mind that the development at Stansted and of appropriate traffic distribution policies would help to cope with mismatch between airports within the London system. The government would invite the BAA to consider whether any improvements were possible which could help to accommodate traffic in excess of 38 mppa at Heathrow, at standards acceptable to the travelling public and the local environment.
In the 1988 strategic advice, LPAC had stated that it recognised “the important role of London’s airports in contributing to London’s economic life. The international role of Heathrow as a centre for world air travel is supported, and the important contribution of Gatwick and Stanstead is acknowledged. Airport activities have a significant environmental impact. The provision of new and improved links and terminals within London will have land use implications. It is essential that consideration of, and policies for, airports and related activities for London’s regional airports are co-ordinated London-wide and with the affected authorities outside London.”[40]
In 1990, the government commissioned the ‘Runway capacity to serve the south-east’ (RUCATSE) study; this reported in July 1993.[41] RUCATSE concluded that: “Heathrow would afford the greatest benefits to the air transport industry and passengers, but it would also give rise to the greatest scale of disbenefits in terms of noise impact on people, land use and property demolition”. In an adjournment debate in April 1994 the Minister for Transport in London, Steve Norris, had the following to say about a third runway at Heathrow:
“In summary, the impacts of a third runway at Heathrow would … be the greatest of all the sites that were contemplated. The scales of impacts of new runways at Gatwick and Stansted would be equal in noise and environmental terms, but overall I do not think that it is a matter of dispute that the Heathrow option would have the most serious impact.”
By the time of the second strategic advice in 1994, LPAC had firmed up its views. While recognising Heathrow’s role as the world’s premier international airport, LPAC noted how the existence of airports also generates other positive and negative effects which are essentially the consequence of their size and location. “Of all the sites serving London, Heathrow has by far the greatest impacts, particularly those of noise and air pollution produced by both aviation and ground transport, road traffic generation and associated development pressures.”[42]
LPAC noted how Heathrow provided by value the largest international freight facility in Britain and this was set against the collapse of the docks. However, LPAC argued that the River Thames still provided an important artery to the heart of the city for water-borne traffic and thus there was a need to maintain wharf facilities within Greater London. LPAC’s endowment document had a chapter on the Thames and Thames-side highlighting the work of its Thames-side Working Party, which had advised government on its ‘Strategic Planning Guidance for the River Thames (RPG3B) and whose policies would be taken forward by the mayor through The London Plan.
The government commissioned RUCATSE study had a third runway as one of the four core options and LPAC set out its opposition. “LPAC is firmly of the view that as the impact of a third runway on local communities, environmental and surface access grounds is so much more severe than the other options, that government should immediately rule it out of further consideration.[43]
LPAC wanted instead daytime runway capacity to be fully utilised, particularly at Stansted. “Further expansion of terminal runway capacity at existing sites including Stanstead should be examined in the light of the environmental consequences of expansion and the implications for reducing economic imbalance between east and west London.”[44] LPAC took a very active part in the debate, working with and alongside bodies across the southeast, with a focus on the evidence on air quality both from transport and runway activity.
LPAC pressed government and the boroughs to:
As the debate over a third runaway at Heathrow restarts, such arguments are likely to be played out once more.
[1] John Davis (2022), Waterloo Sunset, Princeton University Press, page 217.
[2] Ibid
[3] Sue Brownill (1990), Developing London’s Docklands, Paul Chapman Publishing, page19
[4] Jerry White (2001), London in the 20th century, Vintage Books, p205
[5] Op. cit. Jerry White, p206
[6] Ibid
[7] Jerry White (2001), London in the 20th century, Vintage Books, p206
[8] https://trustforlondon.org.uk/data/population-over-time/
[9] The Greater London Development Plan 1986, Published by the Greater London Council, 8E1.
[10]John Hall, Metropolis Now London and its Region, 1990, Cambridge University Press, p55
[11] Op. cit. John Hall p56
[12] Op. cit. John Hall p57
[13] Op.cit. John Hall p58
[14] Op.cit Jerry White p78
[15] Op.cit John Hall p58
[16] Michael Hebbert, London More by Fortune than Design, 1998, Wiley, p191
[17] Op.cit John Hall p58
[18] Op.cit. GLDP revisions 1986, 8E4-5
[19] Op.cit. GLDP revisions 8E4-5
[20] Op.cit GLDP revisions 8E10
[21] Ibid
[22] Op.cit GLDP revisions 8E23
[23] Op.cit GLDP revisions 8E27
[24] LPAC, Policy Issues and Choices, 1988, published by LPAC p5
[25] Ibid.
[26] Op.cit. LPAC p35
[27] Department of the Environment, Strategic Planning Guidance for London, 1989, page 5
[28] Ibid.
[29] Construction of the system was begun in 1985 and opened in 1987. Extensions to the City and the Royal Docks followed between 1991-94 and to Greenwich and Lewisham between 1996-99 and to London City airport and Woolwich (2004-2009).
[30] The Thames Gateway: An Analysis of the Emergence of a sub-regional regeneration initiative Jul 1995, Andrew Church and Martin Frost, The Geographical Journal Vol 161 No2 pp199-209
[31] https://www.jstor.org/stable/3059976
[32] LPAC, Strategic Planning Advice, 1994, LPAC p19
[33] Ibid.
[34] https://web.archive.org/web/20180411062142id_/https://www.landecon.cam.ac.uk/pdf-files/urban-and-regional-analysis/part1-final-eval-feb-07.pdf
[35] Op.cit Rhodes, Tyler and Brennan pages 744-746
[36] Ibid.
[37] LPAC, Strategic Planning Guidance, 1994, LPAC, p. 24
[38] Department of Transport Airports Policy White Paper, 1985, Cm 9542
[39] Ibid.
[40] LPAC Strategic Planning Advice, 1988, LPAC page 48.
[41] The Government called in BAA’s planning application for a fifth terminal at Heathrow on 17 March 1993; the planning inquiry for the same began on 16 May 1995.The Terminal 5 inquiry ended up being one of the longest in UK planning history and was concluded only in 1999, after the election of a new Labour Government in 1997.
[42] LPAC Strategic Planning Advice, 1994, LPAC page 68
[43] Op.cit LPAC page 69
[44] Ibid.
[45] On 2 February 1995 the Secretary of State for Transport, Dr Brian Mawhinney, gave the Government’s official response to RUCATSE: “The Government have concluded that RUCATSE’s analysis shows a strong case for additional runway capacity in the south-east; but that more work is needed to inform decisions on any proposals which operators may bring forward for that additional capacity (…) I am clear that BAA should not consider the options studied in RUCATSE for a third runway at Heathrow or for a second runway at Gatwick.”
