Canning Town & Custom House: re-stitch regen

The Canning Town & Custom House area has fantastic transport infrastructure– with the DLR, Underground and National Rail services and easy access to the A13. Ironically, these are also the things that sever the area from its key areas of economic activity such as the Excel Centre and Barking Road; leaving an economically desolate no-go area of primarily council homes. So it makes sense that the regeneration plans seek to re-stitch the areas by relocating the A13 slip roads and removing the roundabout beneath the overpass and by ensuring the new Crossrail station at Custom House, which is due 2017, brings tangible economic benefit.

As Helen Fisher (LB Newham), the scheme’s programme director, outlined the regeneration plans also hope to tackle the area’s socioeconomic isolation through an ambitious but primarily physical regeneration programme which seeks to – dare I say it – rebrand the area by creating 2 new retail centres (with up to 70,000 m2 of retail, office and leisure space), investing in environmental improvement and social facilities such as a new school and health centre and developing over 10,000 new mixed tenure homes. All in hope of pulling the growth in London eastwards by 2023.

That kind of ambition always screams “GENTRIFICATION!!!” to me but I’m willing to withhold judgement for now because the scheme makes a concentrated effort to minimise displacement. For example, it proposes no loss/reduction in social rented units, gives tenants the right to return to the area if they wish and there was even mention of pepper-potting. Likewise, there is an effort to not displace existing local enterprise and employment skills training does not focus primarily on construction apprenticeships and entry-level service jobs but also on workplace experience through out the entire supply chain (e.g. finance, architecture, town planning, etc). More needs to be done to link in higher education and enterprise but Helen and her team recognise this. So perhaps the gentry here will be home grown as well as imported, which is far more sustainable.

The jury is also out on the likely success of Newham’s intention for the scheme to largely self-finance AND produce surplus receipts. There has already been a substantial amount of public subsidy into the first phase of the scheme but as Richard Fagg from Bouygue, one of the schemes development partners, pointed out: Newham has a clear and well considered vision and strategy for the transformation area that has full buy-in within the authority and the community, which gives developers confidence. Also because commercial viability is a top priority, the values of the sites are more anchored to long term capital growth resulting from the areas regeneration then they are to general market conditions. As such, Newham have strategies in place for interim uses of cleared sites, like allotments or temporary art spaces, that also facilitate its place shaping agenda. With the imminent deep cuts to the public purse, this may well be the only truly viable way forward.

Nnenna Urum-Eke
LB Southwark