THE development of the Thames Gateway will not fall behind schedule because of the impending recession, housing minister Margaret Beckett has insisted.
Incoming chief executive of the new Homes & Communities Agency, Bob Kerslake, suggested in the press this week that the target of 160,000 homes to be built in the Gateway by 2016 might be missed.
But speaking at the Thames Gateway Forum at London’s Excel centre on Wednesday, Beckett said it was not the time to begin “watering down our ambitions” and predicted the area would become the country’s first eco-region.
“I cannot pretend the Gateway will be immune from the slowdown,” she said. “But I would say this: the government is alert to the changes ahead. The region is well placed to weather the storm. Now is not the time to give up on the Gateway…it is more relevant than ever before.”
Beckett also announced that the East of England Development Agency, the London Development Agency and the South-East England Development Agency would identify regeneration schemes most at risk in their regions, so they could be given extra help from central government.
She also officially launched the Gateway’s Institute for Sustainability, first unveiled by Gordon Brown at last year’s forum, claiming this would help “accelerate the technology that will help us live more sustainably in the future – as well as creating jobs and attracting investment.”
The institute will be based in three campuses, with a £40 million research centre designed by Arup Associates in Dagenham, and facilities at Dartford and Shellhaven in Thurrock.
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