Joan Ruddock
Crossrail
This speech was given as part of a debate in the House of Commons.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Mr. Beard) for allowing me to speak in the debate. He and I represent an area of London that is one of the worst served for public transport and includes some of the 10 most deprived wards in the country. My constituency includes Thamesmead-in effect, a new town designed in the 1960s as a contribution to solving London's housing crisis, but built without any thought of providing an adequate public transport infrastructure. Inadequate bus services developed in an unplanned and uncoordinated way as the population grew, with the result that transport in and out of Thamesmead is poor and within it even poorer. Thamesmead's nearest railway station is Abbey Wood, on the periphery.
Part of my constituency lies in the London borough of Greenwich, and colleagues at Westminster often assume that because of that, I have access to the new Jubilee line station, which serves the Greenwich peninsula. However, where I live, on the boundary of Thamesmead and Belvedere, in the heart of my constituency, there is no direct bus or any other link to the Jubilee line. Even from parts of my constituency that have a direct bus link, the journey time can be an hour or more. Yet Thamesmead and Belvedere, as my hon. Friend said, represent one of the largest employment areas and potential employment areas in London. The Belvedere employment area is the second largest industrial area in London, with potential for more development. Realising the potential of the Thamesmead and Woolwich industrial estates, the Belvedere employment area and, further east, the industrial and development sites in Erith and along the Thames road to north Kent, as well as retaining existing businesses, depends on good transport infrastructure.
The Minister saw for himself on his recent visit the problems caused by the Thames road bottleneck. When he saw the view from the top of the Pirelli vulcanising tower, he could see the development potential. Regrettably, a few days after the Minister left the site, Pirelli served 90-day redundancy notices on the bulk of its staff and the company is in danger of closure. I hope that he and his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will intervene to ensure that the Government do what they can to protect the submarine cable industry in this country.
Before constituency boundaries were changed, I was the Member for Woolwich. The seat included Woolwich Arsenal, which in its heyday employed more than 80,000 people on one site. It was the largest factory in Europe and it was bigger than the whole of Ford Europe is today. Woolwich Arsenal gradually declined after the war and was eventually closed in the 1970s. Boundary changes have resulted in it being just outside my constituency, but it borders Thamesmead.
I have been campaigning for almost 20 years for a rail tunnel under the Thames at Woolwich. My hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford and I would have preferred a heavy rail link, which would have provided the best opportunities for regeneration by linking with the north Kent line to fill in the missing link in the orbital rail network.
The decision to extend the docklands light railway, which will help to boost the local economy in Woolwich and to assist the Woolwich Arsenal development, has been taken. It will not, however, have the major regenerational effect that crossrail would have had. As my hon. Friend said, the choice of crossrail route cannot be made in isolation from the development of the Thames gateway, where there is a large area of development land on both sides of the Thames, which could provide the homes and jobs that London needs.
Crossrail offers an opportunity to redress the east-west imbalance in London, and a route to the royal docks in Newham would support regeneration in what the Mayor's draft London plan identified as the third largest opportunity area in London. East London and the Thames gateway can provide one third of London's total new housing requirement and 40 per cent. of all new jobs. The royals is the largest area of development land in the Thames gateway and opting in favour of a station in Charlton would be short sighted and would jeopardise the regeneration benefits for the royals, which are in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Mr. Banks).
The royals route could also serve London City airport, which would link to the Government's recent report on airport capacity in the United Kingdom. That report proposes a planning policy actively to encourage airports to maximise their potential capacity by utilising their existing runways. At present, City airport serves 1.6 million people a year and the Government's consultation paper suggests that that figure could reach 5 million by 2030. That figure could be achieved sooner with crossrail, which has a possible throughput of 7 million passengers per annum by 2030. The extension of the docklands light railway to the airport by 2005 will certainly provide better access, but it will be insufficient to support either the airport's growth in capacity or the full development of the royals.
I live under City airport's flight path. The airport is a few miles away, but whether I travel by public or private transport I can get to Gatwick more quickly than I can get to it. Crossrail will massively cut journey times in east London. The journey time from the royals to Paddington would be down from 58 minutes to just 18, and that from Tottenham Court road to the royals would be down from 49 minutes to 14. The royals option is important for London, but the scale of the potential development, the key visitor attractions and the university make it nationally significant.
I know Charlton because I lived there for 15 years and represented it on Greenwich council for nearly 20 years. I lived a few hundred yards from Charlton station and the sacred turf of the Valley. There is a highly developed residential area to the south of the Woolwich road. The area to the north of the Woolwich road is largely industrial and again it has little scope for residential, commercial or office development, or the generation of the jobs, which the royals would provide. Greenwich council argues that crossrail might not terminate at Charlton and could be extended to Woolwich, but there is no scope, or plans, for additional track eastwards from Charlton. Crossrail could go from Canary wharf to Charlton and Woolwich only if it were to take over the track that currently serves the Connex services from Woolwich into London Bridge and Cannon Street. In that case, there would be no direct trains from Erith, Belvedere, Abbey Wood or Plumstead into London Bridge, and a shuttle bus would replace them. Only the royals route guarantees a service to Woolwich that would not interfere with the existing north Kent line services.
Originally, there was talk of a terminus and interchange at Woolwich, but current opinion seems to favour a major interchange with the north Kent line at either Plumstead or Abbey Wood. My hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford suggests an interchange further east at Slade Green and I have no argument with that. My constituents want access to the new crossrail and continued access to the north Kent line. Only the royals guarantee a link to Woolwich.
Crossrail services could begin in 2012 and obviously the major benefits will accrue close to opening. However, as my hon. Friend said, an early announcement and an early commitment by the Government would provide significant pre-opening benefits in anticipation. For Woolwich and Abbey Wood, a decision to choose the royals would boost confidence, assist in retaining employment and enable developers to bring forward proposals sooner or to revise their master plans to reflect crossrail. Only the royals route offers the best prospect of maximising the full potential of the royals themselves, as well as enhancing the prospects for regeneration and development in Havering, Barking and Dagenham north of the Thames, and in Woolwich, Plumstead, Thamesmead, Belvedere, Erith and on to north Kent in the south. The Government must make a clear decision on the route of crossrail and it must be via the royals through to Woolwich and beyond.
