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© 2009 Bradwell Area of the Diocese of Chelmsford
















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The Church in the

Thames Gateway

4 Key Thames Gateway Projects

 

  • The Olympics/Stratford City. The Wesfield development of a new shopping centre which sits between the new International Cross Channel Rail Station and the Olympic site is rapidly taking shape. It is still scheduled for completion in 2010 and with it’s proximity to the Olympics looks to be fairly recession proof. There is also massive progress on the Olympic facilities with the main stadium already taking shape. Questions do arise about whether the current economic crisis will lead to some of the planned legacy facilities being built as tempory structures instead and whether more of the assets will have to be sold commercially to repay public funding.
  • Barking Riverside. Development of the first phase of almost 2,000 houses is due to begin in 2009 and and it looks as if this will happen but with few of these houses sold in the private sector. However the longer term development of a further 9,000 houses was thrown into confusion with the Mayor of London’s announcement that the development of the DLR extension through this area would not go ahead. This area does not have any reasonable public transport at present.
  • London Gateway Port. The final, overall, permissions were given during the year and the planning authority expect to start to receive planning applications in the first half of 2009. Providing the capital is available (and it is funded out of Dubai) then they should be able to work to the original schedule and start to come on line in 2010/11 when the UK, hopefully, starts to come out of the current recession. However cargo ships are now being laid up so this may cause a slow down in development.
  • Ebbsfleet Valley – This is a 20 - 30 year project and Land Securities, the developer's, business plan always assumed a couple of recessions in that period. (I suspect they would have preferred not to have one at the very beginning of the project) The planned housing is 10-11,000 units and although the site is now open very little is currently being built.