Thames Gateway.... welcome to the future?

Restructuring the labour force, flexibility, privatisation, all the familiar. TG as social engineering... good explanation of the various partnerships too.

Thames Gateway.... welcome to the future?

Dave Amis, 23 January 2005

The Thames Gateway regeneration project is presented as a response to the long term post-industrial decline of the lower Thames from the former docklands of east London down to Southend-on-Sea and the Medway Towns. There has been much discussion on the environmental impact of the regeneration scheme. What this article is intended to do is start the process of discussing what impact the Thames Gateway will have on working class people in the region.

The region covered by the Thames Gateway initiatives encompasses a sizeable chunk of inner London, thousands of acres of brownfield land formerly occupied by heavy industry, discrete urban conurbations such as the Medway towns and Southend-on-Sea as well as many square miles of open farmland and deserted marshes. The proposed regeneration takes many forms, ranging from Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott's plans for hundreds of thousands of new homes, through to zoned areas attracting different kinds of commercial development and arts events celebrating the culture of areas such as Thurrock.

There is an element in the plans of simply providing overflow housing from London in the expectation that a significant percentage of the new residents will be commuting back into London for work. However, new housing is only part of the story - a significant amount of new commercial development is also mooted for the area. All of these developments are going to have an impact on working class people who live there.

One of the most striking things about the Thames Gateway is the veritable alphabet soup of partnerships and agencies that are involved in the work of planning the future of the area. An explanation of how these relate to each other is given in the box/sidebar. There are so many and their connections to each other so complicated, that some sort of explanation is needed, and that is what is set out in the box/sidebar

To any outside observer the result is a muddle. But what is clear is that none of the partnerships is democratically accountable to the people living in the area in any direct or meaningful sense. Local authorities and county councils are involved in some of these partnerships but any major tasks tend to fall under the remit of the Urban Development Corporations (UDCs) who are not subject to any democratic accountability.

Since working class people living in the Thames gateway have minimal input into the regeneration process, it begs the question - who is intended to benefit from the development in the Thames Gateway? The fact that there is little in the way of direct democratic accountability over the process of regeneration signals that the interests of business are being given precedence over those of people living in the region.

This is an area that in parts has been badly hit by the closure of the upper docks and the disappearance of industries such as cement and paper manufacturing, as well as the scaling down of oil refining. The end of these traditional heavy industries has left behind a manual working class population, that in some ways is struggling to accommodate to the now rapid pace of change in the region. As a result, there are significant areas of social and economic deprivation in the Thames Gateway region.

Another that needs answering is whether the various initiatives associated with the Thames Gateway will address the needs of the working class in the region, or is it a huge social experiment with one of the aims being to at least partially replace and tame that class? Will the proposed economic developments draw this class back into the world of full time, secure and relatively well paid work or will they serve to further marginalise them, as new people and skills are drawn into the area?

Looking at the various plans and 'vision statements' for the area does start to offer some clues as to how the planners see the economy of the area shaping up in the future. One example is Thames Gateway - South Essex: A Vision For The Future. In this vision, different areas are scheduled for various kinds of development that in many ways, seem to reflect existing labour market potential.

Looking at Thurrock shows how this works. With the M25 going through the region connecting with other major roads plus the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, Thurrock is being mooted as a transport and logistics hub as stated in the vision document: "* to support a sustainable European logistics industry, underpinned by a multi-modal transport system, and supported by a centre of excellence for the wider community" "* to develop a world port at Shell Haven and Tilbury, connecting London and South Essex to Europe and the world's trading centres." [1]

Essentially it's an enhancement of Thurrock's long-standing role as a port and home to numerous transport depots, but with a much higher level of investment in infrastructure to keep the goods moving in and out. All the plan does is seal Thurrock's role in shipping goods in and out as well as in storage and wholesale retail distribution. As well as moving the goods in and out, there is the task of selling them in a retail environment with the complimentary shopping malls of Lakeside and Bluewater at either end of the Dartford Tunnel playing a major role in the region's economy. Inevitably, in the context of the contemporary labour market, the kind of employment on offer will be tending towards the flexible 24/7 end of the spectrum.

Basildon has been mooted as a 'business centre' in the vision statement: "* to make Basildon and Castle Point the centre of business excellence in South Essex supported by excellent infrastructure, skills, training and education, and quality business environments and facilities" "* to develop a leading business support centre in Basildon to serve all of South Essex, both new and existing businesses" [1]

This is highly unlikely to be a location for corporate headquarters but almost certain to be back office, call centre and support centre orientated; again the offer is of 24/7 employment, which will be non-unionised and subject to contracts of employment that demand 'flexibility,' In short, Basildon is earmarked as a location for white collar factories, employing a workforce living with the disciplining and restraining fear that their jobs will end up being outsourced abroad if they don't perform, regardless of the time of the day or the day of the week.

In Kent, one of the main areas for planned regeneration is the area spanning Dartford and Gravesend, incorporating the upmarket Bluewater shopping mall and the new Channel Tunnel Rail Link station at Ebbsfleet. The construction of 25,000 new homes and the creation of 35,000 new jobs has been mooted for the area.

Travelling towards Kent over the Dartford River Crossing reveals the dramatic changes that have already occurred. What was once a run down area with derelict cement works and abandoned quarries now features hotels, business parks and Bluewater which as well being a shopping mall is an entertainment complex to boot. Gone are the manual jobs in the cement works and paper mills to be replaced by a demand for hotel and catering staff plus sales and retail staff at every level. The triumph of the service sector over heavy industry is the hallmark of the area.

Understandably, very few people would voluntarily choose the arduous and often unpleasant calling of working in a cement works. But do the new jobs coming into the region offer any improvement? Sure, workers are not subject to backbreaking work or the ever present risk of industrial disease from polluting manufacturing processes. However, much of the work on offer is not a direct replacement for the jobs that were lost - they offer a completely different experience which requires a new type of worker. Much of it is service sector work which often involves anti-social hours but requires the worker to put on a happy face for the customer regardless.

The planning agencies seem to be intent on creating a new non-unionised working class slaving away at all hours of the day and night in call centres, shopping malls, freight depots and warehouses. What is less clear is how they see the old unionised manufacturing working class fitting into their future vision. The jobs will certainly be coming back to the region but many of them will come at a price. That price will be total flexibility, working anti-social hours and disrupted family lives. This will in many instances be backed up by a culture of short term contracts and temporary employment. The trick for the boosters of Thames Gateway will be to get the existing manual working class to sign up to the emerging employment culture and at the same time persuading other workers in the region that a flexible attitude to work is the way forward for them.

As if these changes weren't enough, in addition to the inevitable stress induced by having to endure a flexible 24/7 work culture there will be the added burden of trying to keep the roof over your head in a situation where housing provision is becoming increasingly precarious. With Basildon starting the process of 'consultation' over handing its housing stock over to Arms Length Management Organisations (ALMOs) and housing associations and Thurrock considering doing the same, secure affordable social housing provided by the council is looking to be a thing of the past. ALMO and housing association controlled social housing generally means higher rents and less security.

At a time when employment is becoming less secure and there is a demonstrable need for affordable and secure social housing, many people will find the rug is being pulled from under their feet. The fear induced by having to keep up the rent to a landlord offering little in the way of flexibility for those hitting hard times - or paying off the mortgage on one of the many thousands of 'affordable' private sector homes that Prescott is proposing - will act as a major disincentive for anyone wanting to kick out at the privations of the 24/7 employment culture that is set to invade the region. The combination of a squeeze on social housing, tougher terms and conditions for those who can secure it and the numerous 'flexible' employment opportunities that are coming our way will serve as an attempt to keep the working class in the region tamed.

Although it may seem odd to be discussing a regional regeneration programme on the IWCA site, in many ways what is happening in the region is a snapshot of how the working class will be evolving. Underneath all the hype about bringing life back to what was a run down post industrial area, is an implicit agenda of social engineering aimed at delivering a pliant, flexible, atomised and tame working class for an emerging 24/7 logistics, retail and service economy. In a political climate where the neo-liberal economic outlook is viewed as the natural backdrop to our lives, the discussion is about delivering the workforce that will accept it as so. This is why in many respects, the Thames Gateway regeneration is a massive social experiment in delivering that compliant, flexible workforce.

Of course, no planning agency is going to present the likely outcome of a regeneration programme in such stark terms. A key feature of any promotion of a regeneration plan is a lot of meaningless buzzwords and phrases which are designed to induce a warm glow of optimism but which fail to spell out what will happen to whom and why. Another key feature of any major regeneration programme is the lack of any meaningful democratic accountability. A situation that isn't helped by all the major parties having signed up to the neo-liberal economic consensus. They will all take pretty much the same managerial technocratic approach to regeneration. They all share a similarly bleak vision of working class life in the future.

Welcome to that future - the Thames Gateway....

References

[1] Thames Gateway South Essex - A vision for the Future. Thames Gateway South Essex Partnership.

Explaining the alphabet soup ...

Three Thames Gateway Partnerships have been set up to work closely with local authorities, the Greater London Authority (GLA), the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) and other 'stakeholders' in the region to promote regeneration of the area. The three Partnerships are as follows: Thames Gateway London Partnership; Thames Gateway South Essex Partnership; Thames Gateway Kent Partnership.

The three Partnerships are co-ordinated by the Thames Gateway Strategic Partnership (TGSP), chaired by a Government Minister. The TGSP has developed a strategy for the area which includes identifying key growth areas, capacity for each area, existing transport issues and future demand for transport. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (OPDM) provides a planning executive, the Thames Gateway Strategic Executive (TGSE), to assist the TGSP and co-ordinate the efforts of the Government agencies involved.

Central to the project are the (TGSE) and the (TGSP). Both of these sit within the (ODPM). The latter is chaired by Lord Rooker, an ODPM Minister, and includes Government departments and other agencies, such as The Housing Corporation and English Partnerships. Beneath these central bodies sit three regional partnerships, covering the areas of London, Essex and Kent that fall into the Gateway area.

In many locations, such as North Kent Thameside, Medway and Swale, local authorities work with the (RDA), English Partnerships and other bodies. In a few locations, the Government has taken responsibility from local authorities and set up a Unitary Development Corporation (UDC). UDCs have powers of compulsory purchase. These UDCs are to be brought forward in East London and in Thurrock.