London Docklands:policy & regeneration in Britain since 1979

• London Docklands

  Situated on the River Thames, to the east of the city
• London Docklands

  • Globally important in the 19th and early 20th centuries
  • Home to a lot of economic activity e.g. warehouses and shipping offices
• Decline of the London Docklands

  1. Changes in the shipping industry - the larger container ships became more popular

  2. Docks were not large enough or deep enough to accommodate them

  3. Replaced by Tilbury
• Condition of the London Docklands by 1980


  • Largely derelict
  • 150,000 people had lost their jobs
  • 20% of housing was not suitable for living in
  • Poor public transport meant the docklands were largely isolated from the rest of the city
• London Dockland Development Corporation (LDDC)


  • Set up in 1981 to redevelop the area
  • Had the power to buy land and decide how it should be used to encourage businesses and people to return
• The area was made into an Enterprise Zone from 1982 - 1992
• By 1998, there were 2,700 businesses trading in the Docklands and it had benefitted from £7.7 billion of private investment
• 24,000 new houses were built, including 6,250 housing association/local authority houses
• The Docklands Light Railway opened in 1987, meaning journey time to central London was 20 minutes
• New public facilities were built e.g. a sailing and watersports centre and the Surrey Quays shopping complex, as well as 5 new health centres
• New schools and colleges were built and existing schools were improved e.g. with new IT equipment
• The docks were refurbished to create a more pleasant environment and new outdoor spaces were created e.g. an ecology park at Bow Creek, plus 100,000 trees were planted
• Conflict between original residents and more affluent, new residents as it was felt the LDDC favoured luxury development rather than affordable housing
• Many original residents were unable to find work because the jobs on offer were skilled positions in service industries such as banking but in 1981, 36% of the people working in the Docklands were either unskilled or semi-skilled
• Many of the jobs weren't new but had relocated to benefit from tax breaks - possibly as many as 60 - 75% e.g. many newspaper industries from Fleet Street moved to the Docklands
• If you only consider the people living in council housing in the Docklands, unemployment increased from 28% to 32%
• A survey in 1996 found 28% of the people living in the Docklands felt the LDDC had made no difference to their standard of living in the last 15 years and 22% said life had got worse
• Specialist shops that opened in the Tobacco Wharf shopping outlet shut because they didn't cater for the demands of the people living in the area
• The DLR is generally empty, except at peak times when it is overcrowded
• Managing the impacts

  1. In some areas of the Docklands (e.g. Wapping) the LDDC asked for 40% of new housing to be sold at an affordable price to original residents

  2. Centres were set up to provide training in basic literacy, numeracy and IT

  3. £1.5 million was spent on an IT centre that opened in 1984, which trained 16 - 18 year olds in basic electronics and computer programming and provided them with work experience, then at the end of the course they received a qualification

  4. The LDDC supported Skillnet, a job agency which worked with training providers and employers to provide people with the skills needed to find work in the area (e.g. in construction)