Thames Estuary Conference O'Neill Thurrock Bexley Dagenham Barking

Havering Council is working up plans for a fixed rail link in a bid to improve north-south links in the east London borough.

Andrew Blake-Herbert, Chief Executive of the authority, told delegates at our event that Havering will benefit from three new stations on the new Crossrail line, more than any other borough, when it eventually opens.
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However, Havering’s growth had been hampered by poor links between the north and south of the borough, he said: “Nothing goes north and south. The absolute priority is creating sustainable north-south transport infrastructure. We’re currently working on what a tram or monorail network would look like.”

He said the council is “not wedded” to Transport for London providing the mooted services, which could be furnished by a private operator.

Blake-Herbert said Havering is already due to deliver £3.3bn worth of investment and 7,618 homes through three joint ventures which it has recently entered. The largest JV is with Wates Residential for twelve sites, which will be worth £1.3bn and deliver 5,223 homes. In addition, the borough has signed a £500m JV with Savills and First Base to deliver 1,070 new homes and a £300m partnership with Notting Hill Genesis at Rainham with aims to build 866 dwellings.

Responding to a question about digital infrastructure, he said he “wasn’t sure” that the council should own cabling because it would be difficult for a local authority to keep up with the rapid pace of change in the sector, but it’s “absolutely crucial” that the council owns the pipes in the ground that the cables run through.

The Leader of Bexley Council welcomed the Government’s recent announcement that it will back work on improving transport links between Abbey Wood, Crossrail’s current south of the river terminus, and Ebbsfleet in north Kent.

Shortening the south east branch of Crossrail means that services stop short of several major opportunity areas, Cllr Teresa O’Neill said: “We believe that the gap between Abbey Wood and Ebbsfleet needs to be sorted. The job needs to be finished.”

She said extending Crossrail, involving the delivery of three new stations in her borough, would open up a growth corridor for new housing and jobs.

Highlighting opportunities in the region O’Neill said that Bexley alone contains nine km of brownfield sites with the capacity to deliver 31,000 homes and 17,000 new jobs over the next 25-30 years.

The Thames Estuary as a whole has a greater development capacity than the Oxford Cambridge ARC, she said: “The estuary has the opportunity to deliver more houses and jobs than Oxford-Cambridge corridor. We have the aspiration and capacity to deliver that.”

Chris Naylor, Chief Executive of the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, said that modern signalling technology has dramatically improved the potential capacity of the rail network: “You can stick a train down the Victoria line every 5 seconds. The technology exists to massively increase capacity on the Overground rail network.”

He added that Barking could be a new stop on the HS1 line, which runs underneath the town’s main station. Integrating HS1 with the rail services, which already run through Barking station, would boost use of the currently under-used line.

Cllr Robert Gledhill, Leader of Thurrock Council, said that his borough would also benefit from a HS1 station: “HS1 whizzes all the way through Thurrock. It would be the ideal place to have another station.”

However, a choice had to be made between the two if HS2 is to continue to be a high-speed service, he said: “We need an intelligent conversation about whether it sits best in Barking and Dagenham or in Thurrock.”

Gledhill also said that his authority is determined to avoid repeating the mistakes of the Thurrock Development Corporation, which had delivered housing without supporting infrastructure like transport and schools.
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